Monday, February 16, 2009

UPDATED: Forever Objects: Who are those tiny JLA-ers?

UPDATE: See bottom of post for new info discovered after this post went live

It's been a while. I apologize. I'm back.

So, as we all know, Grant has his own continuity blazing through the DCU. Beyond just characters being effected by this subtle continuity, though, you also get recurring objects that pop up from time to time in the writer's works. For the sake of this blog, I'm calling them "Forever Objects," and the first one I'm taking a look at is the tiny JLA.

In the 2000 prestige format one-shot titled JLA: Earth-2, the regular JLA travel to a parallel universe where evil counterparts of themselves rule the world. In that universe, Lex Luthor is the last hero and here he can be seen standing over a canister in the regular JLA's trophy room. Inside that canister is a miniature version of the JLA.



And then in 2008's Final Crisis #4, aboard the floating space station the JLA uses as a headquarters, several heroes run through the JLA trophy room on their way to fight attackers. While running through, we're treated to a quick glance at a bottle holding a tiny JLA!



Far as I can tell, there's no story featuring the JLA (or even a doppleganger team) shrunk down and STUCK that way, allowing them to remain forever imprisioned in a bottle. They do get shrunk down here here and here, but not permanently (thanks to Douglas for the heads up on that). It's probably just set dressing by Grant; albeit very particular set dressing.

UPDATE:

I guess I should've waited a few hours before originally posting this, because I actually discovered what the tiny JLA is all about.

In JLA: Secret Files #2, in a "Lost Pages" story by writer Mark Millar and artist Christopher Jones, Zauriel gives a brief tour of the JLA trophy room. During the tour, he comes to a tiny, bottled version of the JLA and says the following:



So, there you have it! They're from a previous adventure with Abra Kadabra and Toyman. But as far as I can tell, they've only been in the Trophy Room when Grants writes a scene there, so hopefully we get treated to that adventure down the line.


2 comments:

Richard said...

Excellent find! I know I've seen that Secret Files but I didn't remember that at all...and I never even registered those other cameo appearances. Many thanks for this.

Hello! I'm Zibarro! said...

My pleasure! I read all of Earth-2 recently and didn't even think twice about it. But then I read Final Crisis #4 and saw it and it clicked! Then, after posting the earlier bit, I was just flipping through the Secret Files for another story and I found that Zauriel explanation! Nuts.

Thanks for reading!