JLA Presents: Prometheus

Prometheus was one of the villains introduced in Morrison's JLA run. Basically evil Batman with a bit goofy gimmick of inserting discs into his helmet. Maybe discs becoming a bit of an obsolete technology is one of the reason why he had a rocky career. Or maybe writers just don't know what to do with him.

To cut things short Prometheus became a bit of a joke and I have seen some people, who normally post okay opinions, say that well he was a joke in his first JLA story as well. After all his plan was absurd and in the end he was taken out by Huntress. But villains tend to have absurd plots and motivations in Morrison's work, that is normal. As for getting taken out by Huntress?

Lets step back a little and look at what Morrison was doing at the time. When it comes to Justice League there is always a question on the purpose of various members because Superman is there. He is stronger, faster and smarter than most of the members so what can they really contribute to the team? And on top of that Morrison wanted to expand the membership to 12 people so that JLA would resemble Greek pantheon. So what do you do?

You introduce a new villain, an evil Batman, who has a plan for every JLA member. And when it looks like he is going to win he is stopped by, arguably, the weakest member of JLA. Why? Because he couldn't keep track of everyone, there were just too many JLA members. So his story was basically about saying that yeah, Superman is the best, but villains can prepare traps for him and quantity has a quality all its own. So in the end simply having more good guys might be enough to turn the tables regardless of how powerful or skilled they are.

So anyway, DC decided that they want to present Prometheus as a serious threat again. For that purpose they published Faces of Evil: Prometheus one-shot written by Gates and drawn by Dallocchio. It reveals that he was actually put into coma by Martian Manhunter after Morrison's JLA run ended. So the guy who became a joke is a different guy, not the real deal. And well, since Manhunter died in Final Crisis... real Prometheus woke up.

It is not a great story in itself, but the main purpose is to reset Prometheus so that he could be used as a big bad again. And I think it works in that regard. As a plus it is also a soft tie-in to Final Crisis. Unfortunately what followed was Cry for Justice. And well, I'm not going to cover it, if you know something about DC comics then you probably have heard about how terrible that story was.

Then Flashpoint happens and we move into new continuity. This again provides an opportunity to use Prometheus without having to worry too much about Cry for Justice. His first appearance is in Orlando's Midnighter series and it is actually good. This Midnighter run is worth reading in general and as a bonus for Morrison's fans it features Freedom Beast in one story, I think it is his only post-Flashpoint appearances that isn't a cameo?

Unfortunately every other Orlando's DC book has been noticeably weaker than Midnighter. One of those is Justice League of America. I'll be mentioning it in some future posts as well since he ends up using a number of Morrison's characters in it and sadly fumbles with most of them. But anyway, Prometheus makes a return and basically tries to do same thing again. He gets by trickery into JLA headquarters, he lays his traps and almost defeats the league.

It reminded me of Gotham City Monsters book. Lots of callbacks to what Morrison did, but zero substance or anything new said. As I mentioned in Morrison's JLA there was a bigger point behind the story. In Orlando's JLA? His traps just weren't good enough and he loses. It was really weird considering that Orlando tried to put Prometheus in different environment when he wrote Midnighter. But here he just offers us an inferior replica.

But fear not, we have another fan of Morrison - Williamson. He brings back Prometheus in his Deathstroke Inc. run that then leads to Batman: Shadow War and Dark Crisis appearances. He doesn't get a major role and he acts more like a sidekick for Deathstroke than as someone with agency. And well, even Williamson's fans usually agree that Shadow War and Dark Crisis weren't his strongest works. So you know, Prometheus in these appearances is not as bad as in Orlando's JLA, but at the same time it is not good either nor does it serve some bigger purpose.

Just read Morrison's JLA, Faces of Evil one-shot and Orlando's Midnighter. Everything else should be skipped.