Comic Info
Comic Name: JLA: Earth 2
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Frank Quitely
Release Date: 2000
Every action has a reaction!!!
Alexander Luthor has come to Earth asking for help from the Justice League…this Lex however isn’t the Lex Luthor that the superheroes know. Alexander reveals he is from a parallel Earth which is ruled by tyrants known as the Crime Syndicate of America…who just happen to be the Earth 2 counterparts of Earth’s JLA. Now, the JLA is off to Earth 2 to help liberate the people, but events on the antimatter mirror world of Earth 2 could have drastic effects on their Earth.
Written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Frank Quitely, JLA: Earth 2 was a stand-alone graphic novel spinoff of Grant Morrison’s popular run on JLA. The series serves to reintroduce the parallel universe of the DC Universe which was destroyed during the game-changing min-series Crisis on Infinite Earths which ran from April 1985 to March 1986.
Crisis on Infinite Earths was a big deal and helped unify and streamline the cluttered DC Universe. It also in the process ended up eliminating a lot of the fun in the DC Universe by getting rid of some of the weirdness and/or goofy stories from earlier decades. One of the casualties of the Crisis was the destruction of Earth 2 and Earth 3.
Welcome to OUR Earth…JLA!!!
Earth 2 was the Golden Age DC Universe which included adventurers during the early days of DC. This initially was created to make sense of the idea that Superman and others could be fighting Nazis and still be fighting in the ’60s with all his friends. Earth 3 however was the world that the Crime Syndicate and Alexander Luthor inhabited…here Morrison just kind of scrapped Earth 2 and replaced it.
The series has rather dark tones with the JLA deciding that they really can’t alter things in a world surrounded by evil. It is a rather nihilistic approach that isn’t common in mainstream comics…especially when considering that the shiny JLA is the star.
I love Frank Quitely’s art. He always has such a great perspective on characters, and I love his raw and edgy designs. It is what this series needed to give it more edge and helped this be one of DC’s better standalone graphic novels of the ’00s.
JLA: Earth 2 is a great read and must if your read Morrison’s JLA. The return of the parallel worlds opened up a lot of different stories for DC and this story was also a big chunk of the storyline for the animated movie Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths which was released in 2010.
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