Reviewer: Kevin S. Mahoney
Story Title: Chapter One: The Hidden World
Written and Painted by: Chris Moeller
Lettered by: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Mike Carlin
Publisher: DC Comics
Remember Paul Sebert’s reviews of the Marvel Mega Morphs miniseries? It was a close up look at what the House of Ideas was putting up to promote its armored hero toy line. The books, while obviously out of continuity, and goofy as heck, were fun.
This JLA Classified two-part special mini-series is neither funny, goofy, nor out of continuity. It’s just drivel. It’s so much drivel that I’m simply going to mention that the JLA eventually end up piloting giant alien robots to fight aliens, point you towards a few better reviews, and then talk about the all painted art in this book.
Here are four Marvelous reviews featuring the same gimmick in a way that doesn’t stink on ice…
Marvel’s Mega Morphs #4
Marvel’s Mega Morph’s #3
Marvel’s Mega Morphs #2
Marvel’s Mega Morphs #1 i.e. OUR MOST IMPORTANT REVIEW… EVER!
Okay. Perhaps the painters in the audience have skipped the above links to learn how well the JLA were rendered here. The answer: below par. Of the many artistic questions one might ask, the two most pressing are these: Why is Batman’s cowl always a solid blue shield… and… what’s with all the tiny group shots? Both choices accentuate how unprepared the artist was for a large epic story featuring many of the DCU’s most well known characters. Maybe the rock’em sock’em robots second half of this thing will redeem the first, but somehow it seems highly unlikely.
