JLA: Classified # 32
DC COMICS
WRITER: Dan Slott, Dan Jurgens
ARTISTS: Dan Jurgens, Trevor Scott
COVER: Doug Manhke

The first-part of a new story-arc where a loser gets a chance to make all his best dreams come true-- literally. JLA villain Dr. Destiny loses his dream-gem and it falls into the hands of a nobody called Darren Proffit who uses it to re-create reality. Dubbing himself "the Red King," he prepares to take on the JLA. This issue-- in fact the whole story-arc, apparently focuses on Proffit with the JLA merely the foils in his ambitious scheme. While he doesn't start out as villainous, or even very intelligent, Proffit soon attains the kind of power that most supervillains only dream about. His scheme is ingenious and more importantly, interesting. Comic readers have had years of supervillains twisting reality with ease but in this issue, the creative team put a new spin on it, making it-- not realistic, but at least, credible. They also make the Red King an interesting character without turning him into some witty stand-up comedian or a mass-murdering monster.  The art is strangely satisfying. They apparently paired Scott up with Jurgens to get a 'rougher', more realistic look than Jurgens' usual streamlined style. One big flaw in this book is the attempts at humour. Slott is suppose to be good at comedy but Plastic Man's jokes in this issue are pretty lame and this results in character coming off as annoying and even stupid.

JLA: Classified # 31