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JLA (1997-2006) Vol. 5 by [MARK WAID, Bryan Hitch]

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Mark Waid

JLA (1997-2006) Vol. 5 Kindle Edition

by MARK WAID (Author), Bryan Hitch (Illustrator, Artist) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 58 ratings

Part of: JLA (1997-2006)

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In this latest trade collecting JLA 47-60 - JLA Heaven's Ladder 1, the JLA has always been a team of superheroes that have relied on each other to defeat insurmountable odds. But with Batman's betrayal and expulsion from the group, suddenly the team has become divided amongst themselves. Dealing with dangerous issues of trust, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Aquaman, Martiam Manhunter, and Plastic Man must try and unite to face off against the twisted fairy-tale nightmare of the Queen of Fables and the world-altering abilities of Dr. Destiny. But even if they defeat these formidable foes, the JLA may be shattered by their loss of faith in one another.

Part of: JLA (1997-2006)

JLA (1997-2006)
Print length

433 pages
Language

English
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Publisher

DC
Publication date

June 17 2014
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1540375 KB
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Product description

About the Author

Mark Waid bought his first comic at age four and has never once since entertained the notion of not buying comics. In his early twenties, granted only the writing skills one absorbs by living life as a copious reader, Waid began freelance reporting for and eventually editing comic-book trade publications such as Amazing Heroes. This led to an editorial tenure at DC Comics. Waid left DC's staff in 1989 to pursue a full-time freelance career. Since then, he has written stories for every major comics publisher, including Marvel Comics, Archie Comics (where he served briefly as their cover-gag editor), Dark Horse Comics and DC. In years past, he has written every major character from Superman to Batman to Spider-Man. Currently, Waid lives in California, anxiously awaiting the day his parents will finally break down and confess to him that he is, in fact, not their actual child but rather an adopted orphan from the doomed planet Krypton. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00K7EIX3U
Publisher ‏ : ‎ DC (June 17 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1540375 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Not enabled
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 433 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #434,941 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #4,146 in Superhero Graphic Novels (Kindle Store)
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- #8,665 in Superhero Graphic Novels (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 58 ratings

About the author

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Mark Waid

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Mark Waid, a New York Times bestselling author, has written for a wider variety of well-known pop-culture characters and franchises than any other American author, from Superman to Star Wars to the Justice League to Archie to Spider-Man and many, many others. His award-winning work with artist Alex Ross, KINGDOM COME, is one of the best-selling graphic novels of all time. (Secretly, however, he prefers SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT and his IRREDEEMABLE collections as his favorite works he's produced.)

Additionally, Waid is a leader in the digital comics medium. His publishing imprint, Thrillbent.com, hosts an enormous collection of multimedia stories in all genres.

With over thirty years of experience in his field, Waid happily mentors young writers and maintains a blog at www.markwaid.com that is full of advice for beginning writers and experienced authors both.

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

58 global ratings

5 star		58%
4 star		29%
3 star		7%
2 star		7%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Avenger

JLA Volume 5 Deluxe Edition TPB Review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 24, 2017

Verified Purchase

After Batman's betrayal & expulsion from the Justice League of America, the rest of the team is struggling. A rift is growing between those who supported th Dark Knight & those who voted him out. But even more damaging, Batman's disloyalty has destroyed the unwavering trust the heroes once had in one another. As they battle the fairy-tale nightmare Queen of Fables & their old adversary Dr.Destiny, will the Justice Leagues's doubts about each other give their enemies the advantage?
Then , as the team is still rebuilding, an old foe reemerges seeking revenge on Earth & the JLA. The White Martians- a race of deadly shape-shifting telepaths- return with a plan to destroy every member of the Justice League of America. But can even this grroup of heroes defeat a powerful, invisible army that can anticipate their every move?

Collects JLA #47-60

Akhilesh Singh

Very nice book

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on June 19, 2017

Verified Purchase

A good book with but good story though not that interesting

M. Paulo Bracais

The storys are good! The writers are a legends in the comics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 8, 2015

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The storys are good! The writers are a legends in the comics! I recommend the fans of LJA read this book!

Tomas Balino

Mark Waid's excellent run in (ALMOST) its entirety

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 12, 2015

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I have a soft spot in my heart for Mark Waid’s JLA. Grant Morrison’s classic run on the series was brilliant and one of my favorite runs on a comic ever, but Waid wrote some equally fabulous stories when he inherited the title. Now, with the exception of the famous “Tower of Babel” storyline, in which the League discovers that Batman has developed ways to take down each of its members, Waid’s run is finally collected in one hefty trade paperback. This includes the graphic novel "JLA: Heaven's Ladder" and JLA #47-#60, in which the League must face the Queen of Fables, Doctors Destiny and Polaris, the White Martians... as well as their own alter egos.

Perhaps what sticks out the most in Waid's run on the Justice League is the attention he places on character. One of the challenges of writing a run on Justice League made up of DC's flagship characters is that many of them are having their personalities developed in their OWN series, and nothing that happens in the "team book" can contradict them. Grant Morrison, Mark Waid's immediate predecessor and the founder of this era of the League, worked around the issue by showing character through action-- a.k.a. the way each Leaguer figured out how to resolve a specific threat-- and interaction-- in other words, the way they related to each other. Mark Waid uses both techniques and cranks the "interaction" focus up a few notches. The events of "Tower of Babel" (collected in JLA Vol. 4) loom throughout a large part of these issues, as the League finds itself ideologically split down the middle over the decision to-- shall we say, ALTER Batman's membership status at the end of that storyline (which I'll try not to spoil for those who've yet to read it). At times, it almost seems surprising how much the JLA argues over their decision-- in other incarnations of the League, members would come and go all the time-- but it shows how much respect they have (or, in the case of Batman's detractors, had) for the Dark Knight.

Waid also employs a third technique to develop his characters: using the threats he pits against the League to examine who they are as people. This is perhaps best exemplified in "Divided We Fall," in which the heroes of the Justice League find themselves literally split from their secret identities and must learn to live without them. Likely inspired by the classic Elliot S! Maggin and Cary Bates story "Who Took the Super out of Superman?" Waid (a huge Superman fan) shows what the League loses when their normal superheroic lives are separate... as well as what they gain. The writer asks some interesting questions, such as "Who is Bruce Wayne without Batman?" and vice versa, and while the answers he gives may surprise you, they clearly come from a man who has given a lot of thought to these characters. Watching John Jones discover what it’s like living without his tragic history as the Martian Manhunter is especially moving, and leads to some of the best moments in the storyline. Waid also goes out of his way to show how much Plastic Man, now a full-time JLA member, adds to the series as a character, culminating in a hilarious Christmas story (Waid’s final issue) where the wisecracking, pliable superhero tells his friend Woozy Winks’ nephew of the time Santa Claus *supposedly* joined the League.

In addition to his great character work, Waid's plotting also deserves to be commended. While Morrison's JLA run often felt freewheeling, with glorious, mad ideas being tossed around, Waid's stories feel very carefully constructed. The stakes in his Justice League stories are just as high, but everything is much tighter. Every problem the League faces has a very specific-- and inventive-- solution, and is often one only their particular personalities and skill sets can provide. Each plot point and twist is meticulously thought out and connects almost seamlessly to the one preceding and succeeding it. "Terror Incognita" (the White Martian story) is a slight exception, as it feels a little less tautly plotted and actually has one or two borderline plot holes (a rarity for Waid), but the story makes it up for with its visceral fast pace and its cleverness.

Bryan Hitch and Mike S. Miller are the primary artists of this volume of JLA, and there are some stunning pages, particularly in the "Heaven's Ladder" story. There are moments where you'll be drooling over the level of detail Hitch has poured into those pages, and he draws the characters in a way that is lifelike and heroic, reminiscent of Neal Adams. He also has a great eye for costume design, as seen in his elegant design for the Queen of Fables and the sleek new suits he gives some of the Leaguers in “Divided.” As good as Hitch’s art is in these stories, however, there are a few panels that seem a bit rushed, and some of the action sequences are a bit stiff--there's a scene where Batman's fighting hand-to-hand and it doesn't really look like he's hitting his opponent. Mike Miller, on the other hand, perhaps draws with a bit less detail, but his faces are more expressive and his action scenes are at times notably more dynamic than Hitch's. Paul Neary, longtime Hitch collaborator, inks both artists to great effect, although Armando Durruthy and Dave Meikis in particular are overall better fits for Miller's art. Laura Martin (credited in these issues as Laura DePuy) does a stellar job with colors on Hitch's work, particularly in the Doctor Destiny story, where she does an excellent job of establishing the tension between Batman and Superman through lighting. I’m a big fan of John Kalisz and especially David Baron’s coloring, too, which use a lighter palette with vibrant colors that really “pop”—just as you’d expect from a story with brightly-dressed, mostly optimistic superheroes. Several other artists contribute to the collection, including Phil Jimenez, Ty Templeton, Doug Mahnke, and Mark Pajarillo, who all turn in very solid work in JLA #50, which inventively makes the change in art styles an element of the story (hint: the villain’s Doctor Destiny). Kudos also to those responsible (presumably Waid, Hitch and letterer Ken Lopez), for the imaginative “three-dimensional” word balloons for the villains of “Divided They Fall” as it truly sells the characters’ otherworldliness.

Perhaps the one story in the trade that does not quite match the strength of the others is JLA #59 by Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty. It’s part of the “Last Laugh” crossover, in which the Joker transforms several supervillains into Jokers, and features a “Jokerized” version of the classic Green Lantern/Justice League villain Doctor Polaris. Dixon and Beatty are both excellent writers with a knack for good dialogue (ditto Waid), but the story has some major plot oddities (if Plastic Man can freeze solid in the Arctic, why can’t Green Lantern just protect him with an energy field?) and the conflict that rises between Batman and Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) feels a little forced; I won’t go into detail to avoid spoilers, but it’s a little difficult to NOT argue in Batman’s favor. Still, it does show something important, as it is one of the few instances where we see this version of the League disagree on how to handle a supervillain. Darryl Banks illustrates the issue with a clean, energetic style, and draws some especially good facial expressions, particularly at the beginning of the story and when Polaris is facing off against a certain wisecracking Justice Leaguer. The issue does have its merits, and I am glad it was included, but it feels sort of like the “odd man out.”

All in all, JLA Vol. 5 a collection of stories with far more strengths than weaknesses. The biggest complaint I can make about it is that the order in which the stories have been placed is a bit odd. Chronologically speaking, "JLA: Heaven's Ladder" takes place before "Tower of Babel" (and obviously so), meaning it really should have been in JLA Vol. 4. "Babel" should have been the first story in this collection, not just for chronological reasons, but also because a large part of the stories in Vol. 5 references it. The last story in the collection, a four-page story from JLA: Secret Files #2 that deals with the IMMEDIATE aftermath of "Tower of Babel," is also poorly placed-- it should have been collected with "Babel" or at least placed after "Heaven's Ladder." I do also wish the size of the collection were a little larger, if only to show how impressive Hitch’s art really is—fans may remember that “Heaven’s Ladder” came out in an oversized format, and to see it shrunk down does remove some of its impact, albeit far from all of it.

Formatting aside, though, JLA Vol. 5 is an excellent trade paperback and well worth a read. Even with all the retconning and rebooting DC did in later years, the stories still hold up and are a shining example of how to write big superhero team comics. Waid took what Morrison started and refined it—the big Seven plus Plastic Man appeared in numerous comics around the time these stories came out, proving they resonated as much with the writers as they did the fans. I've heard a lot of people say that Morrison set the tone for this era of the Justice League, and I agree, but most writers of the "Big Seven (plus 1)" JLA were really emulating, consciously or not, Waid's approach, in my view. Big threats, intelligent solutions, strong character dynamics, and Plastic Man jokes: could you ask for more?

14 people found this helpful

johnnywendy

Mark Waid’s run is fantastic!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 23, 2020

Verified Purchase

There was something about Morrison’s run that just kept nagging at me. On further thought, I think it felt too random and scattered with no real stakes. It felt like one crazy event after another that had no relationship to each other. It also never felt like there was much heart to the story.

Waid’s story across the arcs in this book were outstanding. Still not my favorite thing in the world (maybe just JLA can only be so profound) but wow, loved a number of the arcs and some of the beats really stuck with me. Of course, Tower of Babylon was fascinating though shoutout to the ID and Martians storylines.

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JLA (1997-2006) Vol. 5 Kindle Edition

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Mark Waid

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