YMMV / JLA (1997)

• Complete Monster: Protex, leader of the Hyperclan, is actually a power-hungry White Martian who comes to Earth masquerading as a superhero. After winning the gratitude of humanity and cowing most of the supervillain community with a series of ruthless executions, Protex throws away the pretension of altruism and reveals his real goal is to have Earth annihilated by his coming fleets. After he's defeated for the first time, Protex rebuilds his strength by capturing dozens of innocent telepaths and eating their brains. Protex next attempts to destroy humanity by introducing an ion into Earth's atmosphere that prevents combustion—and thus the White Martians' natural weakness, fire—causing people to die and go insane all over the globe while Protex prepares to take over the rest of the galaxy.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Putting aside the nature of death in comics, given the events of Justice League: Cry for Justice, perhaps Batman shouldn't have stopped Huntress from doing Oliver Queen, Roy and Lian Harper, and Star City a favor by killing Prometheus.
  • After defeating the White Martians, the Martian Manhunter and Aquaman telepathically brainwash them into believing they are humans, an action that received little to no pushback both in-universe and out. This was years before Identity Crisis (2004) made the League wiping their enemies' minds a source of controversy.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • During their brief time at Marvel, Grant Morrison wrote Fantastic Four 1234, which featured Doctor Doom, and New X-Men, which had Wolverine as a member. Keep in mind, the first arc clearly had ol' Victor von Doom and Jim Howlett on the Hyperclan's hit list.
  • The fifth issue sees Metamorpho's funeral after the events of the first arc, opening with a shot of statues of Hal Jordan, Oliver Queen, Ice, and Barry Allen to sell the idea that Rex might stay dead and the issue featured the debut — and death — of Tomorrow Woman. All six of them, Metamorpho and Tomorrow Woman included, came back, with Ollie being the only one whose resurrection Rex's own didn't predate. Granted, the scene also had statues of the Justice Society members who were killed by Extant — but that includes the original Hourman, who also ultimately cheated death.
  • The reality-altering shenanigans of Julian September in issues 18 and 19 at one point resulted in a president that looked like Sarah Palin.
  • An issue in 2002 had Plastic Man snark that he and Beyoncé (still a member of Destiny's Child at the time) were "worthless" — which was before Beyoncé found success as a solo act and Destiny's Child broke up.
• It Was His Sled: The Hyperclan are actually White Martians.
• My Real Daddy: As stated on the main page, Grant Morrison's reimagining of the Justice League into DC's pantheon of god-like protectors successfully shrugged off the team's association with their portrayals in Superfriends. Morrison's authorship essentially solidified them into having a mythos of their own separate from their origins as a crossover team-up.
• Once Original, Now Common: At the time, it was refreshing, formidable, and even innovative to have a Justice League comprising the cream of the crop of the DC Universe and treated with respect and even awe, as it hadn't really been done (or done well) in decades. Nowadays, a Justice League of America with the "big guns" has appeared in so many runs, adaptations, games, parodies, and alternate universe takes, that the idea seems not only obvious, but even inevitable.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Superman Blue was almost universally seen as an Audience-Alienating Era for Superman, but Grant gave him several awesome moments, including insisting on taking the membership exam again, passing with flying colors, and wrestling an angel, which Wally comments on.
  • Kyle Rayner during his time as the only Green Lantern also benefited from Morrison. Morrison asked Kyle's creator Ron Marz how Kyle would do on a team book and made sure to stay consist with how Marz wrote him while always having his relationship with Wally West start out rocky and eventually becoming friends.

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