The thing I loved most about the 'Stealing Thunder' storyline that ran through JSA 32-37 was - - you thought I was gonna say the big gorilla henchmen didn't you?

Well, that's not what I was going to say Mr/Ms Smartypants, but now that you mention it I did love the gorilla henchmen. Let's face it anybody who knows comics knows that comics+gorillas = cool. We don't know why, we don't wanna know why.

Let's just take a moment to enjoy some monkey goodness:

Ahhh - now don't you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Now that our tribute to the comic monkey god is done I can tell you what I was gonna say. The part of 'Stealing Thunder' I loved most was the parts told from Icicle's point of view.

For those that don't know the story starts with the Ultra-Humanite (big monkey villian who has traded his fuzzy monkey appearance for a bad haircut and a zoot suit - BOOOOO!) conning Jakeem Thunder into giving him power over his genie-buddy the Thunderbolt.

Old Humey uses it to turn Earth into his own monkey-controlled utopia where he has locked all the heroes up in a matrix style prison.

The story kicks off properly when Icicle (from the Injustice Gang) breaks out the Sandman and they escape into the city where they run into what's left of the JSA.

It's refreshing to see the JSA through the eyes of a villian. A real dirtbag who has been thrown into a situation he wants no part of, trapped into helping people he hates, all to return to a world where he's locked up. Makes what would be a hackneyed old plot devices like a villain controlled parrallel earth and mind controlled super-heroes all shiny and new!

In fine team-up tradition - we get a little scrapping:


Icicle's shining moment comes after everything is put back to normal (as we knew it would be). Sandman was so impressed by his performance against Humey that he shows up outside Icy's cell to offer him a place in the JSA - once he done his time.

Icicle in no uncertain terms tells him where to go - staying complete true to character and making us love this black heated bastard even more than we already do by this point:

I loved that. Made this third-rate Iceman knock-off into a three dimensional character that I wanted to see more of.

This storyline has all the stuff that JSA should have. Legacy heroes and their predecessors, great, goofy, cosmic situations that only comics can pull off (visiting Hourman's dead dad in his office out of time, a Green Lantern powered utopian city), a normally dopey villian made interesting and let's not forget the most important thing:

BIG GORILLA HENCHMEN