by Grant Morrison, Howard Porter and more
collects JLA (1997) #'s 22-26, 28-31"Perchance to Dream," 22-23: Starro the alien conquerer returns! The world falls under a spell, trapped in their dreams, when the Sandman appears to warn the JLA of this psychic attack. In order to wake everyone up, the JLA must send a team to sleep and find the boy dreaming of something other than "It", It that conquers, It that sees all, It that enslaves.
It's a pretty easy problem for the JLA to solve, once they know what to do, but a nice cameo from the Sandman, and a unique, suspenseful build-up to a seemingly indomitable foe make this one unique.
"Executive Action," 24-26: The Superhuman arms race begins as USA General Eiling unveils his thrilling "Ultramarine Corps," a team of 4 Marines who travelled to an alternate dimension and came back with super-powers! Sound familiar? While majority Americans, the JLA has sworn to protect the whole planet and not a single nation, so, this team is born of the idea, "what happens when the JLA assists a nation hostile to America?"
What a concept, but it's all a cover-up for a military coup anyways with Eiling transferring his consciousness to the body of the immortal "Shaggy Man," shaving himself and rebranding it as "The General." Great conceit that leads to a bombastic battle. I think they could have gone farther with the idea, but it went far enough for a great story.
"Crisis Times Five," 28-31: Apparently, there was a founding member of the Justice League, who was wiped from everyone's memories and became destitute -- Triumph. As a form of income, he stole JLA paraphernalia for cash, and one of his relics was an interdimensional imp with the very power to shape reality -- a Djinn. Another Djinn appears and the two of them wage war on Earth! It's a battle between colors, and these two DON'T mix!
There's a lot of dense world-building in this storyarc: the idea of 5-dimensional beings, the "original" founder of the JLA wishing his new future into existence, as well as the various team-ups between the members of the JLA and the Justice Society of America. That leads to several subplots as the JLA scramble to save the world, but the payoff is well worth it. Another world-shattering crisis averted by the JLA.
These are some very tightly-plotted super-comics that are sometimes hampered by their density, but well worth the read at least once.
JLA #1,000,000 is collected here, but only perfunctorily. It's part two of some line-wide crossover event, where the JLA of the year 1,000,000 have appeared in the year of our JLA to save the world from a techno-virus. It's not even a full story, but a place to show off the "look what these new guys can do while they fight the guys we know, and then team up" formula.
BONUS:
Flash and Aquaman work together to beat Flow, the living liquid:
