JLA Presents: CSA

After I finished writing about Busiek's Trinity work I figured that I might as well cover the remaining Morrison's CSA appearances. After all, there aren't that many left.

We probably should start with some trivia. First time Antimatter CSA was mentioned was in 1992's Double Trouble (Justice League Quarterly #8) story by Mark Waid. That is some years before JLA: Earth-2, so were they actually created by Waid and not Morrison?

Not really. CSA gets only one panel cameo and they look nothing like Morrison's version, their looks are closer to classic version of CSA. Anyway, the point of the story was to introduce Conglomerate team from Antimatter world. I guess idea here was that new version of Justice League could use their own version of CSA? In the end it doesn't matter since they never appeared again.

Before I started writing about CSA in my mind I had Syndicate Rules as #2 and Casey's "Mirror, Mirror" as #3, both after JLA: Earth-2. But cool thing about writing these posts that nobody reads is that I end up revisiting old stories with new perspective and my opinion about them sometimes changes. So anyway, Adventures of Superman #603-605 is cool little story that features most of the main characters from JLA: Earth-2 and is arguably more of a sequel than Syndicate Rules was. Only problem might be Maglia's art, it might not be for everyone. But other than that? Must read for any CSA fan.

So why I changed my ranking of these two sequels? First reason is that Mirror, Mirror shows how easy it is to work with "CSA and JLA have an advantage in their home" rule. But the main reason is Busiek's idea that Antimatter universe mirrors the main Earth and adjusts accordingly. I get that with John being back on JLA either editors or Busiek figured that he could use a black counterpart on CSA's side so they came up with a plot device to make it happen. But then nobody is really going to replace Ultraman or Owlman regardless of who is currently Batman or Superman in Justice League, as we saw in Robinson's story. So it is a rule that will be rarely enforced.

One of the comments on Trinity's early annotations posts wondered if Enigma is acting like a bad guy because our Riddler at that moment was acting like a good guy? That is a good question if Antimatter characters are reflections of main characters. So what is the point of developing CSA characters if they'll just reflect whatever is going on with the main Earth? And hey, maybe it isn't a good thing that every Antimatter CSA story had different Power Ring, a trend that continued with various new Earth-3 versions as well.

Anyway, lets move on - issues #6-8 from fifth Supergirl volume. Basically Ultraman gets brainwashed into believing that he is Superman and runs Kandor city while Supergirl goes from fighting him, to making out with him to trying to kill him. To put it bluntly - it is not a good story, might be even worse than Robinson's JLA arc. Since other CSA members are not in this and Ultraman doesn't act like Ultraman due to mentioned brainwashing - very easy skip.

Next we have Superman/Batman Annual #1 by Kelly. Since he was involved with above mentioned Supergirl story I didn't have much faith in this story, but... it is fine? It doesn't pretend that it is in continuity and big part of it is about antimatter version of Deathstroke being Deadpool, but it is fun little adventure. If you like Kelly's writing then you are likely to like this as well.

Antimatter Ultraman was also used by Waid in his Brave and the Bold (issues #11-12) run. Problem is that he looked like recently introduced Earth-3 Ultraman and was powered by Kryptonite instead of anti-Kryptonite. This lead to various speculations that maybe it was Earth-3 version that Waid used or maybe he created a new Antimatter Ultraman. Some even claimed that Morrison actually used this second Antimatter Ultraman in Final Crisis. I'd guess that, like in Robinson's JLA arc, someone mixed up Antimatter and E-3 Ultramans and wrong costume was drawn. Then Waid didn't realize that anti-Kryptonite is not the same as Kryptonite and we got what we got.

But how was Waid's take? It is not bad, Ultraman/Superman interactions were done rather well. Problem is that it is a finale to his year long Megistus storyline and there are many moving parts that don't have anything to do with Ultraman and might be confusing if you haven't read rest of the series. And well, when you hear someone raving about Waid's work you don't hear Megistus mentioned often, if at all. Waid also introduces an antimatter 5D imp and I'm not really fond of that idea, I'd prefer if both worlds had same 5D imps. Kinda how in Casey's story both phantom zones are connected and probably could be considered as same phantom zone. So yeah, read this only if you are interested in Waid's Megistus storyline.

And that would be it since majority of their other appearances are either one panel cameos or illusions or another version of CSA appearing and fans mistakenly marking them as antimatter CSA appearance. So to wrap it up, what is worth reading with these guys?

• Obviously Morrison's JLA: Earth-2 and Final Crisis for some cool Ultraman pages.
• Both Mirror, Mirror (Adventures of Superman #603-605) and Syndicate Rules (JLA #107-114) are good sequels.
• Trinity is harder to recommend since it is more about Enigma (or even Void Hound) than CSA, but if you liked Syndicate Rules then chances are you'll enjoy this as well due to both being written by Busiek. Or you could just read #9-13 since those issues could be considered as a sequel to Syndicate Rules and CSA gets the most focus there.
• Superman/Batman annual #1 depending if you like Kelly's sense of humor or not.