JLA - Created Equal

Since the New 52 i've been looking deeper at DC's back catalogue, trying to get hold of comics that i missed first time around, when a while back i came across an early 2000's 'Elseworlds' title ( Elseworlds was the 'Alternate Universe' section of DC comics, where writers could do, to an extent, whatever they wanted with characters, even going as far as killing off/maiming/etc characters normally given plot shielding like Superman or Batman ) called  'JLA - Created Equal' ( JLA stands for Justice League America ) , written by Fabian Nicieza with art by Kevin Maguire.

The basic plot idea is that a cosmic radiation sweeps across Earth wiping out the male gender bar two individuals, leaving Earth facing extinction. The artwork is good while the story to be honest is very average, and i can't help but question the attitudes of the writer.

Ultimately the biggest problem is that it doesn't 'feel' like a Justice League story. At all. It feels more like a Superman story with the all of the DC female characters who now form the Justice League somehow playing second fiddle, since both Superman and Lex Luthor ( trapped in his armour that protected him from the radiation ) survive.

So the responsibility for repopulating Earth falls to Superman, by in-vitro fertilization with the exception of Lois Lane. But a revelation by Lex Luthor results with Superman being forced to leave Earth since it turns out the 'male killing radiation' is still contained in his Kryptonian body and he goes to find a cure in space. Lois Lane moves to Themyscira to give birth to the first Kryptonian hybrid, and surprisingly Lois survives her pregnancy....

And dies later when her superhuman 5 year old child hugs her with super strength...

Fast forward several years, once more to Themyscira where the super children are now being raised in a controlled enviroment, and in a training match Powergirls own young daughter ( named as 'Kara' ) is facing off against one of her half 'brothers' and being inexplicably outclassed. The explanation given is purely because being male, he is bigger and stronger ( though to be honest i would have thought the child of Superman and Powergirl would far outclass any of the offspring of the other superhuman mothers in raw might, male or female. Just saying ).

As it turns out all of the male children are gradually having their passions and anger fanned psionically via a machine by Lex Luthor ( powered by kidnapped female beings with psionic powers ) . He slowly convinces the boys that they are being downtrodden, and that their rightful place of leading humanity is being denied them by the women who fear them and their power.

The teenage boys leave and form an army for Lex Luthor, they attack and proceed to wipe the floor with the female Justice Leaguers ( Wonderwoman, Supergirl, Starfire, Fire, Hawkwoman, Powergirl, etc ) the entire Amazon army ( traditionally only a little bit weaker than Wonderwoman, so thats an ARMY of Wonderwomen, with centuries of training and a mild dislike of any men invading their home ), and to finish off, the teenage female super children who had trained under the amazons alongside their brothers.

 This in particular felt wrong since It seemed.... just a little unlikely that the male children could outclass all of that power, experience in superhuman combat, and greater numbers, apparently on the basis of being male. It tried to explain that the female heroes in particular were out of shape ( what ? no female villains/demons/monsters/etc survived for them to fight ? ) and held back because of their emotional attachment to the boys, but it was mildly unconvincing to me.

Suffice to say the womenfolk who survived the superboy army attack are then all saved by Superman returning, Lex is beaten and Superman is cured so he can stay on Earth and look after and guide the super children, and raise the human male children Lex had been preparing for after his conquest.

I really don't know what the story was meant to be saying, fair enough most of the sexist crap was spouted by Lex Luthor ( and that's fine, since he would ), but for a story with 'created equal' in the title, it did a pretty big disservice to DC's female heroes by the frankly hilarious ease that the male super teens take them, the amazons, and the female super teens out. And it still pretty much fell to Superman to ultimately save the day while the women played bystanders,( i wouldn't even mind that cliche if the book didn't have the title 'Created Equal', maybe the writer was trying to be ironic ).

Annoyingly, the actual use of DC is limited, and this was a pity. I can think of several 'male' heroes who should have also survived, above all of them would be Captain Atom. Going beyond myself being a fan of the character, Cap has proven before that even energy and radiations that could kill a Kryptonian/Martian/etc are harmless to him since absorbing energy and radiation is one of his abilities. He also should have survived since by this point he is technically about as human as Swamp thing is ( and Swamp thing did survive, but only has a 1 panel cameo preparing Poison Ivy to enter his realm of the Green to try and find a cure for the male killing 'plague', this one scene was interesting but was purely used to show Ivy was not up to the task of coping as the Earth elemental when Ivy is mentally broken by the experiance. Why Ivy had to go anyway when Swamp Thing could do it himself is an unanswered question ).

 The Martian Manhunter/J'onn Jonn'z is male, but since he can alter himself on a molecular level and can shift to being female/anything if he wished, he really shouldn't have died. Nor should any Green Lantern with a ring on his finger, the Green Lantern ring is meant to protect from cosmic radiations, i don't think there are exceptions since they fly through space all the time, and if Lex's armour can protect him, a Green Lantern Ring should have protected it's wearer.

Also a fair few female heroes didn't seem to feature, with JLA powerhouses like Big Barda or Maxima being notable for their absence ( Maxima would have jumped at the chance to bear Supermans children ), although the idea of them being beaten by superboys is unlikely, which was probably why they were left out.

 I could go on, suffice to say there really should have been plenty of 'male' characters to help out, even if they couldn't procreate any themselves. And some like J'onn Jonn'z and Captain Atom had already been fathers, with J'onn in particular often being a father figure in the Justice league anyway, and their interaction with the superchildren would have been interesting to read.

The whole thing feels like a missed opportunity with some flashes of unintentional interesting parts mingled with giving the female heroes little to do except search for a cure that isn't there, have kids and then get beat up by their sons until being saved by Superman. Ultimately this was just a below average Elseworld Superman story. I just wish it hadn't been presented as a JLA story.