JLA Presents: Aztek(a)

On paper Aztek should have been a bigger deal. Written by Morrison and Millar? Playing a role in Morrison's JLA run? A cool idea in general? Sure he died at the end, but it is not like that has stopped anyone in comics. And yet it took couple of decades for Aztek to return.

While original Aztek ended up dying we did see his potential successor, a female called Azteka, in the alternative timeline of Rock of Ages. So it is probably debatable if Orlando created a new character in his Justice League of America #20 or just continued what Morrison started. But regardless of that, was Orlando's follow up any good?

To cut things short Orlando's JLA run wasn't good and issues with Aztek weren't an exception. Oh and yeah, DC (or Orlando?) decided to go with Aztek instead of Azteka for a female version of Aztek. To make matters worse Orlando's writing is very blunt in trying to make her look like a better hero than the original Aztek. I'm not sure if such strategy with replacement characters has ever worked, but it has been tried many times.

But I guess Orlando really wanted to do something in this space and thats why reworked version of Ray ended up as another hero living in Vanity. And we got some new villains for Vanity and an attempt to make it more unique by making it "most depressing city". No, I don't know what it means either. Obviously sinister architecture bits that Morrison hinted at in the original Aztek series are gone. And well, I can appreciate Orlando trying to expand this space, but as I said his JLA run wasn't any good and stuff with Ray wasn't an exception either. Frankly, there were no exceptions, it was bad from the start to the end.

Fortunately there are some good news. While not a great run, Orlando's Wonder Woman was much better than his JLA. He did two issues (#52 and #53) team-up with WW, Artemis and new Aztek. In my opinion it is two strongest issues in his entire WW run and can stand next to his wonderful Midnighter series.

What it is about? Gods, hypertime, multiverse. And despite being removed from Morrison's JLA by something like 23 reboots it does feel like a decent pseudo-sequel to Morrison's WW3 storyline. So yeah, skip Orlando's JLA and just get these two issues if you want more of Aztek. And if you liked those you might want to pick up #54-55 as well. They don't feature Aztek, but continues with WW/Artemis team-up and are pretty good as well.

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