Company-wide cross-overs are, by and large, something to avoid like the plague.  Mischaracterization, lackluster plots, gaping plot holes, poor art, contrived situation and dozens of others problems are all common for company-wide cross-overs.  And DC's latest company -wide cross-overs have been real wastes of paper.  Genesis ?      Millenium ? Final Night ?  Invasion! ? War of the Gods ?  Zero Hour ?  Ugh.  And while there's no guarantee that DC One Million won't end up like one of those, it's certainly off to a rather promising start. 

The Justice Legion A (the JLA from the 853rd Century) shows up to invite the JLA of the 20th century to a celebration honoring the return of the Prime Superman (our Superman) in their century.  In exchange, the Justice Legion A will watch over the 20th century Earth.  Because it would make for a rather boring cross-over if something didn't go wrong, something goes wrong and the JLA is stranded in the future while the Justice Legion A is stuck on the 20th century Earth.  All the while, Vandal Savage and the renegade sun, Solaris, plot the destruction of the Justice League. 

Phew.  There are quite a few things going on in this debut issue, but Morrison manages to juggle them all rather well.  None of the subplots seem overly negelcted, but we'll see if that lasts as this cross-over gets going and the characters begin meandering off into asinine side ventures in their own titles (for an example of such a tie-in, read my review of SUPERMAN #1,000,000 later down).  If Morrison can manage to weave everything together *then* ... I'll be very impressed if that happens.
 

Still, that's the future.  DC ONE MILLION #1 is the present (heh).  And there are some very cool bits in Morrison's writing here.  I really liked the opening of the issue, with the annihilation of a prominent global city. Unofrtunately, judging from events later in the issue, that's not really going to happen.  Damn.  Just once, I would like to see something like that (the destruction of a major city) in a major cross-over, to give it some importance.  The only time this has ever happened, I believe, was in the MARS ATTACKS IMAGE mini-series, when Detroit was annihilated.  

Also, it was rather ironic that Morrison squeezed in more characterization in this (the premiere issue of a major company-wide cross-over), than he's managed to in the entire JLA run thus far.  Particularly good examples in this issue are the Martian Manunter, the exchange between Nightwing and Oracle, and Vandal Savage, who truly seems like an exceptionally evil villain.  The bit with the new Titans team was also rather good.  

Unfortunately, other parts weren't quite as good.  The bit with Batman and the Huntress was completely wrong.  Batman saying "We can't automatically assume everyone's an enemy."  Hello !  Batman would never say something like that, ever.  Especially not given the cornball nature of the speech the Justice Legion A gaveto the JLA.  I can maybe see Superman, Green Lantern, Flash and Wonder Woman buying into something like that ... but Aquaman, Batman and J'Onn ?  No way.  Batman and J'Onn both think very logically and Aquaman is so cynical.  No way they should buy that crap.  

As far as the villains go, I am enjoying Vandal Savage, who certainly seems to be up to the task of conquering the world.  However, Solaris leaves me cold.  For one thing, it seems to change size in every appearance.  Is it super-huge ?  Or man-sized ?  Or does it change sizes for a reason ?  Hopefully, this will be explained soon.  Also, the basic design for Solaris is rather unremarkable.  Not terribly terror-inspiring. 

Artistically, Val Semieks does some rather nice art.  Some of the "big" event-type scenes aren't quite as good as Howard (JLA) Porter's (the lone thing at which Porter truly excels), but he does do a nice job on the characters.  Of course, I doubt that either the characters or the cities of the future will look anything like they are presented here, but that's to be expected, I suppose.  I liked most of the Justice Legion A's costumes, save for the Flash's (which struck me as awful-what the hell are the floating triangles for ?), Wonder Woman's (boring . . .), and Superman's (just plain . . . ugly). The future Batman's costume is quite nice, however.  And the futuristic cities look pretty, in fact, they look very much like something an artist in the Silver Age would have drawn, with a few modern touches thrown in.  Regardless, I can accept them. 

In the end, it seems that DC ONE MIL is off to a good start . . . but the jury is still out on how it will end up. 
 

Score: B 
 
 

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