JLA #66
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeJLA #66 serves as the opening chapter of 'The Obsidian Age,' one of the most ambitious time-travel epics in the post-Morrison JLA era — a seven-part saga that would strand the core Justice League team in ancient Atlantis and push the concept of the League to its structural limits. The issue is the first appearance of two significant DC characters, Manitou Raven and Tezumak, both of whom would graduate from antagonists to more complex roles in the DCU: Raven eventually joined the main JLA roster and later the Justice League Elite, while Tezumak's bronze-armored legacy rippled forward into DC mythology. By choosing to frame its ancient antagonists as a mirror 'League of Ancients' rather than simple monsters, writer Joe Kelly embedded a moral ambiguity into the villains from their very first page that elevated the arc well beyond a typical time-travel punch-fest.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
JLA #66 was written by Joe Kelly and illustrated by penciller Doug Mahnke and inker Tom Nguyen, the same creative team that had been building toward this storyline through the preceding 'Golden Perfect' arc. It was edited by Dan Raspler with Stephen Wacker as associate editor, under executive editor Mike Carlin and editor-in-chief Jenette Kahn — the final months of Kahn's long tenure atop DC Comics. Published on May 30, 2002, the issue carried a July 2002 cover date and served formally as 'The Destroyers, Part 1,' the prologue chapter to the larger Obsidian Age story. Kelly and Mahnke conceived Manitou Raven as a deliberate nod to Apache Chief from the Super Friends animated series — Raven's spell-casting incantation 'Inukchuk' is a direct callback — while giving the character the cultural depth and moral complexity that the cartoon original never had.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Manitou Raven (created by Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke), an Apache-descended shaman-sorcerer from circa 1000 BCE who would go on to join the Justice League and the Justice League Elite.
- First appearance of Tezumak, a pre-Aztec Mesoamerican warrior-monk clad in divinely charged bronze armor, also created by Kelly and Mahnke; he first appeared alongside Manitou Raven as the pair traveled from ancient Atlantis to 21st-century Florida to attack the JLA.
- The issue is the opening installment — 'The Destroyers, Part 1' — of the Obsidian Age prelude, which directly sets up the seven-part 'JLA: The Obsidian Age' saga.
- Story title within the issue: 'A Storm of Crows' (the framing/dream sequence) and 'The Destroyers, Part 1' (the main story).
- Written by Joe Kelly; art by Doug Mahnke (pencils) and Tom Nguyen (inks); colors by David Baron; letters by Ken Lopez.
- Roster of JLA members featured: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash (Wally West), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), Plastic Man, and Martian Manhunter.
- The issue has been reprinted at least three times: in the JLA: The Obsidian Age Book One trade paperback (JLA Vol. 11), in the Brazilian Liga da Justiça #9 (Panini Brasil, August 2003), and in the JLA hardcover series (DC, 2011 series) #6 (March 2015).
- Manitou Raven's design contains a deliberate Easter egg: his battle cry 'Inukchuk' references the Apache Chief character from the Super Friends animated series, though writer Kelly and sources note that 'Manitou' is in fact an Algonquian — not Apache — word meaning 'spirit.'
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Reprinted in JLA #11 (2003), Liga da Justiça #9 (2003), JLA #6 (2015)
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