Awesome / JLA (1997)

• JLA gave Batman his moment of awesome when the rest of the heroes, and pretty much the entire world, are captured by the invading White Martians. With the message "I know your secret!" left behind in flaming letters written on the unconscious body of one of the Hyperclan, Batman turns the supremely confident invaders into confused, paranoid wrecks. What makes this scene so spectacularly awesome is that, at this point, the entire JLA has been defeated and captured. The leader of the Hyperclan suspects that Batman had died when the Batwing he was flying in crashed, and isn't worried by the thought of Batman surviving. "Batman? Batman! He's only a man!" A "man" who has figured out that they're White Martians and starts easily dispatching them with fire traps.
  • The smirk on Superman's face when he heard Protex go into his "He's Just One Man" rant was hilarious. You could just imagine the thought balloon above Clark's head going "I'm going to enjoy watching Bruce screw with you far, far more than I really should."
• Grant Morrison's run on JLA is made up of back-to-back Crowning Moments of Awesome. Batman is able to expose the Hyperclan as White Martians, and is the first superhero to make them truly scared. The Flash manages to catch up to a rival speedster and punch him into space in less time than it takes a vase to hit the ground. Superman wrestles an archangel immediately after restoring the moon to its orbit. In a dark alternate future where Darkseid's taken over, Batman spent seven years under torture at the hands of Desaad and won. In the same alternate timeline, The Atom kills Darkseid. Connor Hawke defeats the Key, a man bordering on nigh-omnipotence, with one of his dad's old boxing glove arrows. And, in the end, the entire population of Earth is given superpowers and willingly joins the JLA and an army of angels in fighting a potentially galaxy-killing menace. You'd think that last one would be a huge event that would've shaken things up in The DCU... not so...
  • Batman's second fight with Prometheus. Prometheus's helmet lets him upload skills. The first time he fought Batman, it was with the skills of the twelve greatest martial artists on the planet (including Batman himself). The second time, Batman switched the discs, giving Prometheus the physical abilities of Professor Stephen Hawking. "First time I've ever hit a man with motor neuron disease." Which leads to this exchange with Huntress: "Did I just see you cheating?" "Winning."
  • Also in Grant Morrison's Hyperclan arc, Aquaman gets a Moment of Awesome when fighting the Hyperclan speedster Zum.
    Zum (taunting): "You must be Aquaman. What can you do? You can't fly or run fast, can you? Your skin may be tough, but not so tough I can't just... cut through. What can you do, apart from talk to fish?"
    Aquaman: "Let me think.... I can locate your brain's basal ganglia, the part inherited from your marine ancestors... and, just for starters, I can give you a seizure."
• Yet another one from the Hyperclan arc: Batman yet again showing his Crazy-Prepared, right after Wonder Woman has taken down Primaid of the Hyperclan by dragging her up into the vacuum of space.
  Green Lantern: So how long can you hold your breath?
  Wonder Woman: Obviously longer than Primaid. What a strange question. Why should anyone know how long they can hold their breath?
  Batman: Three minutes fifteen seconds. You'd be surprised why.
  • It's important to note that Batman is dragging past four unconscious Hyperclan members, as compared to Wonder Woman's one, when he says this.

    Green Lantern (Kyle): Only four, Batman? You're slowing down.

• The story which introduces Zauriel to the DCU (by having him chased down to Earth by renegade angels). Leaving aside the two epic moments of (a) Superman wrestling an angel, mentioned above, and (b) Wonder Woman managing to stop a city-sized spacecraft from crashing into San Francisco and destroying the city, the most awesome moment is the part where Superman stops the moon from falling out of its orbit. At this point, Superman had his electro-magnetic powers, and he uses those to cause the Earth and Moon to repel each other, saving both. Flash later questions him, wondering how he managed to pull off such an amazing feat. "He smiles, and it's that one smile he has, the one that reminds you he's not really from here. 'There were larger forces at work today, Wally', he says." The next panel is a wide-shot of the lunar surface, showing a giant finger-print on the surface of the Moon.
  • A more subtle, but still undeniably awesome moment for Martian Manhunter in this arc. First he stands up to an angel long enough for Superman to come wrestle it, but the real moment comes after. Said angel spacecraft is going to fall on San Francisco until the Martian Manhunter comes to help lift it. Impressive, but he is as strong as Superman. What makes it a true CMOA is that anyone who touches the ship bursts into flames. So Martian Manhunter is lifting a city sized spaceship while surrounded by his greatest weakness, and still refusing to give up. Bad Ass.
• Yet another Grant Morrison example: in "Elseworlds," the Connor Hawke Green Arrow, who has just been invited to join the JLA, shows up at the Watchtower to find that the Key has taken it over and placed the entire League in drug-induced hallucinogenic comas to power a machine that will somehow turn him into a Reality Warper. The entire issue is one, long CMoA for Connor, as he singlehandedly defeats most of the Key's robot Mooks and stops the Key from completing his plan at literally the last second, armed only with a set of his father's ludicrous Trick Arrows, which he isn't even trained in using.
• One arc had the JLA, except Aquaman and Wonder Woman, each have a Literal Split Personality. Superman gradually became more distant and withdrawn while Clark became neurotic, Batman became an Empty Shell while Bruce has no outlet for his rage and trauma, Flash dismissed Barry's legacy while Wally became lazy, Kyle Rayner went crazy from having no outlet while Green Lantern lost his imagination, John Jones no longer fears fire and the Martian Manhunter got all the 'last of my race' angst, and Plastic Man lost his ability to take anything seriously while Eel O'Brien is giving in to his criminal impulses. Of the entire team, Eel is the first to see the danger they're all in, as he doesn't want to be a criminal again, and gives the alter-egos a much-needed dressing-down that inspire them to come to their senses and reunite with their other halves—and when the aliens responsible for the mess renege on the deal, Eel and the civilian heroes lead the charge to attack after the superpowered League was taken down. Wonder Woman then ends it by tricking the aliens into splitting her into her clay self and the spirit of truth, which restores everyone, and by working together, they unite in a wish to destroy the wish-granting machine and return everything to normal.
• Grant Morrison gives a quick, one-scene summation of why Kyle Rayner is a better Green Lantern than Hal Jordan. Hal may have been without fear, but that's what Kyle has that makes him better — that he knows fear and can overcome it. When so many of Hal's fans were shitting on Kyle for daring to be emotionally vulnerable, Morrison — well known for their love of the Silver Age — is the one to come along and address that idea.
  Dream: Why do you hesitate each time? This man Jordan, the one who wore the magic ring before you... why does he overshadow all of your thoughts and actions?
  Kyle: What? What does this have to do with anything? I was just thinking about... What is this about Hal?
  Dream: You will surpass him. You already know what he could never learn.
  Kyle: Sh'yeah! Hal Jordan was the best. Everybody knows that. Everybody keeps telling me that, no matter what I do... I met him; guy was a star. What could I possibly know that he didn't know?
  Dream: Fear. You will surpass him.
  • Which becomes even better when Green Lantern: Rebirth confirms that Kyle's knowledge of fear is what protects him from Parallax and allows him to aid Hal Jordan in returning to life.
  • From the World War III arc, you wouldn't think that a man kneeling alone in a room saying "You're messing with the Jerry Springer generation!" to a magic ring would elicit a He's Back! reaction but, in context, Kyle overriding the machinations of multiple villains with nothing but his own willpower is really something else.