By Request: JLA 110, "The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!"

[mastermahan]

A request from bradygirl_12, and my first post. Frankly, it's a fun comic. 7 pages out of 22 below the cut.


It's Christmas Eve, and our story begins with Batman and Superman helping a Santa Claus get ready to go greet some orphans, when the room explodes right in front of them.



The guy playing Santa was actually named Santa.

Batman and Superman summon the Justice League, and we get a nice little check-in on what most of the team is doing for the holidays. Barry and Iris are visiting her parents in the 30th century, Ralph and Sue Dibny are scuba-diving in the Caribbean, and Aquaman is presiding over Atlantis's Festival of Lights. I assume it's a coincidence that it has one of the names for Hanukkah, because otherwise Atlantis is a lot more interesting than I thought.

As for Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan, well...



Hal Jordan will not be appearing in this story.

None of the Justice League recognize this John Stewart fellow who shows up in their satellite, but luckily the ring itself vouches for him.

Batman, reading the note again, figures out that the arch mentioned in the note is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. Which seems spurious to me, but he's right, of course, and the next panel has Superman, John, and Red Tornado standing on top of the Archway itself, because if you could fly, you'd pose on landmarks too.

John makes the key "Geiger-counter sensitive to the lock it fits", and soon the League is assembled. A few poor kids out begging in the snow ask our heroes for spare change, and John wants use the ring to make them something, but Ollie points out that's against the Guardian's rules, and also they have a bomb to find.

Stepping into the building, the heroes tumble through a trap door (even the fliers) into... A DEATHTRAP!

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Spiked ceilings are apparently for wimps, because this villain has an actual miniature sun descending on them.



That was pretty damn awesome.

The League is shaken, but resolving to not let Superman's sacrifice go to waste, press on into deathtrap number 2, a self-playing calliope that pumps out poisonous yellow gas.

Being sound-based, Canary is able to hold the gas back at the cost of her own life, and she even throws Green Arrow through a closing door when he tries to stop her.

Cut to a control room, where The Key is gloating over his victories. And of course it's The Key - he sent them a key and a note about keys. More interesting is that The Key isn't controlling these deathtraps himself - he's having his unseen flunky, Key-Man #1, do it instead.



 Fortunately, Ollie figures out that the festive Rovers are attracted to heat, so he lures them all to himself with a couple of flare arrows.

This leaves just Green Lantern and Red Tornado, who find themselves against an army of life-sized tin soldier robots. And they can change their paint color to yellow, because John's not having a bad enough day already. Our heroes are surrounded and look done for... when a door opens up behind them and they tumble backwards into safety.

Cut to the Key, gloating over killing the Justice League.



Apparently that's not a weird hat The Key's wearing - that's part of his actual head!

So yes, everyone's alive - it turns out the Phantom Stranger had replaced The Key's flunky, and rigged the deathtraps to be non-lethal.





John found a loophole! Suck it, Guardians.

The epilogue ends with Black Canary giving Red Tornado a Christmas present: a new costume she sewed and designed herself! It's his now classic look with the yellow piping. Superman declares that the costume is from the entire Justice League, even though Dinah clearly did all the work (maybe the others pitched in for high-tech, alien fabrics?). Red Tornado fails to understand the Christmas spirit, because android, and the narrator breaks the fourth wall to wish us Season's Greetings.

EDIT: Forgot the tags.

Comments

[jkcarrier]

Thanks for posting this, it's one of my all-time favorite JLA stories. I usually dislike schmaltzy holiday stories, but I feel like this one did a better job than most at integrating the themes of giving and sacrifice into a genuinely exciting superhero story. Wein didn't stay on JLA for long, but just about every one of his stories is a winner.

[freezer]

The League is shaken, but resolving to not let Superman's sacrifice go to waste, press on into deathtrap number 2, a self-playing calliope that pumps out poisonous yellow gas.

Being sound-based, Canary is able to hold the gas back at the cost of her own life, and she even throws Green Arrow through a closing door when he tries to stop her.

YOU HAD ONE JOB, RED TORNADO!

[mastermahan]

Red Tornado tries to justify it in that the room is airtight, and so there's no place to blow the gas to - but you'd think he could have at least kept it to one side of the room.

[bradygirl_12]

Thank you! This is such a fun story. I love that despite some friction, the Bronze Age JLA really respected and liked each other. And we saw real heroism displayed during this story.

Clever of John to circumvent the rules.

I did enjoy those glimpses into the other Leaguers' activities. Diana must have been home on Paradise Island? Unless this was during her de-powered phase.

[cainofdreaming]

Clever of John to circumvent the rules.

"Green Lanterns - We're Not a Construction Company."
"...don't you think we should rethink that slogan a bit?"
"No, no. I like it."

[mastermahan]

This was published in March of 1974, so Diana would have had her powers back for a year real world time. Sadly, though, we don't get to see Paradise Island celebrating with their traditional completely platonic mistletoe.

We do some others, though. Red Tornado is with his future wife, Kathy Sutton (who still thinks he's just a bald guy with a monotone voice), Ollie and Dinah are celebrating together, and the Atom is exploring subatomic worlds and has no idea it's the holiday season. No wonder things didn't work with Jean Loring.

[philippos42]

I think 1974 was still in the period when Diana was re-powered but hadn't rejoined the JLA.

[scorntx]

This story has Hal Jordan slipping on a bar of soap, and an acknowledgement of John Stewart being an architect?
It really is an X-Mas miracle!

(It's a good thing there was that story claiming if Guy'd been chosen instead of Hal he'd have died horribly, or otherwise one might think the Guardians could stand to rework their hiring policies.)

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Huh, the ring can do that? I thought it could only create temporary energy-based constructs based on the user's will/imagination?

[cricharddavies]

The ring, like all superpowers, can do whatever the plot demands. In terms of actual comics, yes, it can also protect the authorized user's life even if the user doesn't order that, as had been demonstrated on a few occasions before this.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Ah, sorry -- should have specified. I meant recreating the buildings like that. (I forgot about the part at the beginning.)

[freezer]

The GL rings have long been established as being capable of damn near anything, as long as the bearer has the imagination and the will to make it happen (and the writers don't decide to have their ring run out of power first).

[mastermahan]

Pretty much. The rings (usually) can't create new permanent matter, but when they can, say, transmute existing matter into pretty much anything else, it's a meaningless drawback.

[captainbellman]

This seems like one of the most cynical marketing ploys ever.

[doomedpatroller]

One of my favorite John Stewart stories. I miss the 100 page spectaculars....

[viridian5]

"In a word--you are... dying!"
"...that's three words."

I love the festive deathtraps!