Following his clash with
the Cosmic Criminals, J'onn J'onzz resumed his
search for the Martian Ark. However, to his surprise, J'onzz's spaceship picked up a distress call from his family:
mother,
father, and
brother, all once presumed lost. More puzzling, the signal came from
Phobos, a moon of Mars the Manhunter had previously scanned for signs of life. However his family had come to be there, J'onn was set on reuniting with them.
Upon setting down on Phobos, J'onzz was greeted not by his loved ones, but the humanoid sentries of Duke Dorna. The Manhunter's Justice League of America compatriot
Wonder Woman had once rescued her love Steve Trevor and Duke Dorna from a coup perpetrated by
Ghurkos. Though Duke Dorna wasn't as clearly corrupt, the Plutonian legal system presumed guilt against any accused, and J'onn J'onzz was declared suspect in the immolation of Mars by
The Blue Flame. Further, his fate would be determined through trial by combat, as was the Plutonian way, on penalty of death.
The accused was briefly jailed, sharing a cell with his old foe,
B'rett, thanks to a safety feature in his
Guard Belt that flew him to the moon when Mars perished in flames. Their reunion prompted a history lesson, recalling ancient myths of the Roman Gods having moved out into the solar system to claim worlds as their own, as was the case with Mars. Not content to reign over a planet that bore his name, Mars also sought to destroy any terrestrial gods, such as those worshiped by the green-skinned Desert Dwellers. The Albino Polar People embraced the gospel of Mars, which is why they assumed more humanoid appearances than the greens. Mars set the Martian tribes against one another, for sport and to assert dominance, aided by the lesser deities that served him.
Lord Conquest oversaw a particularly ruthless band of Polars, who forced assimilation upon captive Desert Dwellers, from which B'rett's yellow-skinned race arose. Treated as lesser beings by the white-skinned Martians, the yellows came under the sway of Lord Conquest's rival, the Duke of Deception. The Duke so loved his people that he crafted a moon of their own to live upon, and led them to
Deimos. Later, following a clash with Mars, Lord Conquest took his most fanatical followers to their own moon, Phobos, from whom the even more humanoid and Roman-influenced people of Duke Dorna were descended. Neither Green Martian nor Yellow Deimosian were welcome among the Phobosians, but only B'rett had the patronage of his personal deity in this foreign land. Not only had he declared that B'rett would survive his trial, but that he would also be free to leave for Earth aboard the soon-to-be deceased J'onzz's space ship. It was Duke Deception who had caused J'onzz to lose the trail of the Martian ark, and cast the illusion of J'onzz's family being stranded on Phobos.
All this caused the Sleuth from Outer Space to beg the question, what does God need with a starship? The Alien Atlas and the Xanthic Bandit competed in a series of Olympic-style challenges, as was the Phobosian way, each claiming an equal number of wins. Finally, the pair had to traverse perilous ground, and one wrong step meant a miles deep drop from atop a lunar plane where they had no special powers to save them. Through treachery, B'rett sent J'onzz falling to his apparent doom, while he succeeded with the aid of his still-active guard belt, giddily anticipating his rocket-powered exit from this satellite. However, Phobos could not sustain life without resources from lost Mars, so Duke Dorna and his favored would be taking the vessel for themselves, and allowing Brett to "live" for however long Phobos would keep him. Not only was B'rett enraged, but so was Duke Deception, himself trapped on Phobos by yet another rival, the Earl of Greed. Deception and B'rett joined forces against Dorna, but then the entire moon careened out of orbit.
The Martian Marvel had a history lesson of his own. Not only hadn't any of these false Roman deities of Earth "given" their followers moons, but there were never any Martian moons to begin with. 50,000 years earlier, the genius scientific survivalist
Thas Bakkus had created the two miles-wide satellites during an earlier catastrophe on Mars when the rivers dried up and oxygen disappeared. While Thas Bakkus lay in suspended animation, Martian society evolved to adapt to the atmospheric changes, and in 1955 the Manhunter from Mars was teleported to Earth. Professor Erdel's experiments had also caused Thas Bakkus to awaken from his long slumber, and after studying Earth with his cosmic rays, attempted to conquer it as a replacement for his home world. Just after John Jones had captured
“The Man of 1,000 Disguises”, Thas Bakkus caused all the humans on Earth to become his type of unevolved Martian, and obey his will. J'onzz was unaffected, but Thas Bakkus' having arrived near Earth aboard the Deimos satellite was causing gravitational calamity to the planet. While the Alien Atlas investigated Deimos and set it on a return course for Martian orbit, the human Jim Croft had thwarted Thas Bakkus himself. The Sleuth had recognized Thas Bakkus' handiwork on Phobos, and had programmed the satellite to carry its citizens to orbit a world that could sustain them. In the confusion, the Manhunter from Mars reclaimed his space ship, and made off, leaving B'rett and Duke Deception to drift through space, with only the guard belt between them...
JUSTICE LEAGUE EXTREME #1
written by BRANDON THOMAS
art & cover by BRAD GREEN
variant cover by PHIL CHO
card stock variant cover by ED BENES
Bloodwynd is no hero. The mysterious dark mage of death has his own agenda, which he preferred to pursue in isolation. Outed by his nemesis, the necromancer briefly played at being a champion during a time of unprecedented tumult, when the world’s greatest super-heroes were threatened with extermination. The savage Kryptonian behemoth Doomsday beat Superman into a coma. Hulking criminal mastermind Bane broke the Batman. The minions of the war god Ares saw to the demise of a Wonder Woman. The multiversal destroyer Anti-Monitor extinguished the Flash. Alien tyrant Mongul drove Green Lantern mad. Extraterrestrial terror Imperiex obliterated Aquaman. The worshipers of Darkseid, Lord of Apokolips, executed Martian Manhunter. Through his necromancy, Bloodwynd recognized that these magnificent seven crusaders were tied mystically to the fate of all creation, and he stepped up to defend all of existence… including, especially, his own.
Then came Judgment Day, when the Overmaster and his Cadre arrived to witness the end of the Earth. Bloodwynd was cosmically aware that this moment was beyond him, that all hope rested with the Justice League. He merely watched as the universe ended… and began again. Like tumbling dominoes, the events set in motion by Doomsday led to Hal Jordan becoming Parallax, and with other terrorists against time itself, unleashed entropic energies that annihilated the universe. Only a handful of heroes remained at the Vanishing Point to restart everything with a Big Bang. Today, another Crisis in Time has begun, and many of the horsemen of the previous apocalypse rise again… without any of the Magnificent Seven to meet them. The Septuplicate is essential for salvation, a search for seven successors, an extreme form of Justice League.
Reignman has been born through the melding of the corpse of the Cyborg Superman Zor-El, further enhanced with the automations of John Henry Irons, controlled by the intelligence of the Kryptonian Eradicator. The unjustly exiled Amazon Artemis has chosen to wear the indignity on her back, in the discarded garb of her fallen sister Diana from her own hour of disgrace, as a living Requiem. Freed from Mother’s control and picking up where The Colony left off, the genetically engineered and psychologically programmed killer Jean-Paul Valley is among the sole standing vigilantes defending Gotham from Leviathan, within his sealed Knightfall battle armor. Arrived from a catastrophic near-future where his family perished before his eyes, Walter West takes no prisoners with the crimson quickness of Dark Flash. Compelled by the Life Entity within his White Power Battery to defend their home world against aliens, Kyle Rayner returns to Earth to wield nearly limitless powers over creation as the Omega Lantern. Obsessed with reclaiming the throne for his bloodline, Arthur Curry’s only surviving son, the berserker Koryak, would rule as Aquamaster.
The return of Mongul to Coast City attracts several of these anti-heroes who have faced him in the past, and understand the danger he normally represents. However, the flaxen fiend has not come alone, and his fellows’ reach and menace in unfathomable. What is the Superman Death Squad, and what purpose could it still serve in a world without the Man of Tomorrow? And what of these would-be heroes? Are they all that they seem, and could there be just as much of a threat within their ranks as without?
“Justice League Extreme #1” by Brad GreenON SALE 05.12.21
$3.99 US | 32 PAGES
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