WARNING! MEGA-SPOILERS! WATCH YO ASS!
Title: Into the Woods
Release Date: November 2000
Writer: Mark WaidPenciller: Bryan HitchInker: Paul NearyJLA Members: Superman,
Wonder Woman,
the Martian Manhunter,
the Flash,
Green Lantern,
Aquaman, and
Plastic Man.
Cameos: Lois Lane and
Batman.
Bad Guys: The Queen of Fables.
So what happens?After receiving a mysterious and ancient book of old
fairy tales, a mother and her son accidentally unleash the
wicked-witchy Queen of Fables on
New York City. Searching for the
Beautiful Princess who imprisoned her within the pages of the book, the Queen fixates on Wonder Woman as the cause of her troubles and sets out to take over New York, transforming the
Big Apple into the Big Forest and
magically stealing stories from
films,
mythology, and
comic books (including one completed just before his deadline by Green Lantern Kyle Rayner) all over the city.
Meanwhile, up in the JLA Watchtower on the moon, the Flash, Plastic Man, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter are preparing to respond to the
crisis, but things are still
tense, 'cause they keep arguing about the League's decision to revoke Batman's
membership last issue. Flash and Aquaman transport down to help Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Superman take on a bunch of fire and frost
giants, while J'onn and Plas beam over to the
brownstone where it all started.
After everyone gets done with the giants, the Queen reveals herself. Jabbering about how she wants to be the fairest in the land, she captures Wonder Woman and disappears. The other Leaguers are left wandering the
forest, many of their powers muted by magic. Suspecting that the Queen has a fairy tale fetish, they speculate that she is recreating
fairy tales and
legends -- not a good thing, since they'd be the non-
Disneyfied,
gruesome,
horrific Grimm tales. Part of the problem is that some of the JLA grew up in cultures (
Atlantis,
Mars, etc.) that don't know our traditional fairy tales; the JLA is able to talk to Wonder Woman on their commlink, but she doesn't know to avoid things like
apples,
spindles,
golden arrows...
thorns on branches...
The rest of the JLA split up to cover more ground in the forest. J'onn and Plas find a house made of hard cake -- the witch's house from "
Hansel and Gretel," obviously. They are attacked by
goblins, and the witch prepares to throw them into her fiery
oven...
Elsewhere in the forest, Flash and Green Lantern locate a glass-topped
coffin sitting on a dais. Wonder Woman is lying inside, dead to the world. Standard-issue
cliffhanger, right there...
Cool Moments!The very beginning, with the mother trying to find a kid-suitable
story in the old book, hearing noises in the house, and then discovering that her son has been changed to
gingerbread -- mighty
spooky. After that, it's just people running around in
spandex.
Cool Quotes!Mother, scanning the book: "Okay...'Once upon a time, there was a wicked, hungry
wolf who...' No, I don't like that one. Here. 'Once, there was a
wood ogre who lived off the... the
flesh of children...'? Oh, my God...
Hanging trees...? The
Devil's...
schoolyard...?"
Green Lantern, providing some backstory about fairy tales: "Over the years, they've been kid-ified to leave out certain details. Like how birds supposedly pecked out the eyes of
Cinderella's stepsisters... or how
Tom Thumb tricked an
ogre into lopping the heads off seven little girls... or how
Bluebeard was a
sorceror who could animate the
dead. The Grimms even wrote one called "
How Children Played Butcher with One Another." A real
laff riot, that one."
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