JLA #109.
© DC Comics

Mania Grade: B-
Issue: 109
Authors: Kurt Busiek, Ron Garney, Dan Green
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $2.25

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JLA #109

Inject the name "Qward" into any comic book, and my eyes tend to glaze over. I've rarely thought the Antimatter Universe was used all that well in DC titles, and in the post-CRISIS continuity it strikes me as an easy way for writers to have their cake and eat it too. Want to bring back the Crime Syndicate, late of Earth-3? Put 'em in the Antimatter Universe. It's not a real alternate universe, anyway. Plus it's got those Qwardians in it, and everyone knows how boring they are.

Despite Kurt Busiek's writing, my eyes still crossed a few times while reading the third installment of "Syndicate Rules" - though they may come as much from not having read the first two installments as anything else. But even for those who have been here from the beginning, there's still a lot of catching up to do, as a great deal of this issue is given over to exposition as the Crime Syndicate tries to figure out how gasp! a black man has now become Power Ring, and while the Qwardians chose a new Warlord in their oh-so-democratic way. The League, in fact, doesn't show up until two-thirds of the way through the book, and even then it's only for three pages.

I can't say I'm terribly keen on Ron Garney and Dan Green's artwork, either. The raw, almost unfinished quality of the artwork lends itself well to the scenes set on Qward, but the roughness is noticeable in the scenes dealing with the Syndicate and the League. It's not the sort of artwork that hurts your eyes, but it's enough to distract you from the script which itself is wordy enough to make the mind wander, anyway. Perhaps when the two universes finally do collide, there will be a bang worthy of said collision but judging from this issue, it could just as easily turn out to be a whimper.