JLA, Volume 17: Syndicate Rules

CONVOLUTED PLOT

JLA Syndicate rules collects JLA # 107 - 114 and the JLA Secret Files 2004 into this 200 page trade paperback. This book is one reason why not EVERY story arc needs to be collected into a trade paperback. I suppose it's great for the people who aren't reading each issue faithfully and it IS cheaper, but I've always looked at trades as collecting the better storylines. Syndicate Rules tackles the old familiar DC storyline of counter worlds and parallel characters. This time it deals with the Anti-matter world and the Crime Syndicate of Amerika and their counterparts of Super Woman (Wonder Woman), Ultraman (Superman) Power Ring (Green Lantern), Johnny Quick (The Flash) and Owlman (Batman). The CSA has taken over the free peoples of their world and rules with a sadistic fist but the group is bored. They are looking for new challenges to their might but soon learn a startling revelation that their very existence continues to be destroyed and recreated in a never-ending loop, a situation they trace to the JLA. They hatch a plot to come to our world and take over the League's identity and then send the JLA back to their ant-matter world, trapping them there forever. Meanwhile, the warlike planet Qward, themselves victims of the CSA, unleash their most powerful, planet destroying weapon, and head to destroy the CSA and anything that gets in their way. The whole idea of these parallel worlds has always been a staple of DC lore but unfortunately this story collapses under its own weight of convoluted plotlines and sub-plotlines and a host of characters. Kurt Busiek, one of my favorite comic writers, just tries to squeeze a bit (well actually a lot) too much into the story. The plot would have stood well on it's own with just the CSA angle without the sub-plot of the attacking Qward which only serves to bog down the action. Add to that is the fact that so much space is devoted to the CSA and the Qward that the JLA barely shows up for more than a cameo in their own title. Toss in a bunch of reserve JLAers like Major Disaster, Captain Marvel, Red Tornado, and you have one confusing, overblown story. Little is developed from the Qward point of view and they become just some generic alien race. The CSA start out as wickedly and murderously evil but by the end of the story they've become caricatures. It seems evident that rather that trying to dazzle readers with brilliance Busiek has instead tried to baffle us with BS.