 Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode, another edition of What We Can Geek Them here on YouTube, Geo here, and today we're going to be talking about JLA, The Nail, Complete Deluxe Edition. Yes, we are talking JLA, Deluxe Edition, The Nail. It also collects another Nail, so six issues. If you don't know what the Nail is, if you don't know what an elseworld title is, I will explain. Basically it is DC's former imprint, I should say, of DC stories. Basically what if a certain character did something that altered a storyline, or for example what if Batman had Green Lantern Ring, that's a story, stuff like that. Red Sun, Superman, you know, alternate takes on heroes, which I love. That's one of my favorite things about DC and Marvel, that we can have stories like that, where we can reimagine situations, famous events, and all that stuff. And this is exactly what happens in this book. Justice League, JLA, The Nail, I should say, is written and drawn by Alan Davis and inked by Mark Farmer. And this basically is a story about what would happen if the Kent family did not get to baby Superman that day, that fateful day, all because of a stupid nail that busted their tire on their station wagon. And sort of the chain reaction that soon follows, or the repercussions of a world without the man of steel. Because whether you want to admit it or not, Superman, you know, being the first superhero and being such an iconic character is really, you know, not only is he such a beloved figure, but he is that moral compass of the DC universe. And to take that figurehead out of the equation, you're just creating a whole heap of trouble. Because yeah, well technically all the other characters, they grew up as you know them, you know, Batman, still Batman, Wonder Woman, all that stuff. Their interactions with each other in the Justice League is going to be different. There's going to, you know, everybody's going to be more on edge, grumpier, or at least Batman's a little bit grumpier. There isn't that friendship. There is sort of that partnership, but not like, not the super friends kind of level. You know what I mean? It's more of a social gathering of these heroes wanting to do good in the world. But that friendship and that endearing quality that we like about the Justice League is missing. It also includes the follow-up story, Another Nail, and it's all in great oversized artwork. It looks fantastic without the dust jacket. It still looks great. I'd love the cover of the image for this book right there. You have all the different heroes and I got to be completely honest with you guys. I knew what the premise was and I was really interested in getting this book, but the sole reason or one of the main reasons I got this book was because when I saw this image for the first time, I was really freaking intrigued by this lovely lady right here, one of my all-time favorite DC characters. Should I spoil it? You can probably figure it out who it is. Just the idea alone that she is a Green Lantern core member. I'm like, I definitely want to check that out. And they really did a cool job with it. I really liked how that came about. I thought it was really cool and different from what we're used to, right? Here's the famous Nail right at the beginning of the book right there and the kents miss a very important event and we don't have Superman in this world. We don't have the character. What follows is this close examination of these heroes which are facing public backlash over actions that they've taken and are accused of being just straight up aliens. These men are humans. They're up to no good. You got Lex Luthor being the mayor of Metropolis and all that stuff and he sort of fuels this propaganda of bigotry and hate towards meta-humans. It doesn't matter if they're like Batman who's not a meta-human but they're still, you know, all of them are all of them are crazy. They're all unhinged and a threat to society and you start seeing people believe those lies and sort of fuel that hysteria and the heroes are constantly put through the ringer because of mysterious actions that are forcing them to be seen in a negative spotlight and that intriguing mystery where you start questioning like maybe somebody's doing it and the clues are being placed page by page. It's a really fun aspect of the book and you'll have a fun time trying to figure out who is making this happen, who the villain is. I didn't see it coming. I had no idea but once you do it makes sense and I thought it was a really cool reveal, a really cool alternate take on the character that we call the main villain in this storyline. Now with when the story ends I thought it was a pretty satisfying conclusion to the nail storyline. The follow-up however spins off of a detail from the original story. It's fine, it's awesome. I liked it but I didn't love it like I wanted it to. I thought it was a little bit too chaotic for its own good. I thought it was going to be more grounded like the original storyline. Instead we get a cosmic mash-up where literally page after page you're doing scene transitions where you'll have something in Arkham Asylum and then you read the other page and it's in space and then you flip the page and you're back at I don't know Co City and then you read the follow-up page and you're in Metropolis and it's like that almost through the whole storyline. Sometimes you get two or three pages on a particular event which is great and I'm only I'm probably nitpicking because I got used to it right away but it is one of the negatives for me of the book that I wish it would have been a smaller scaled storyline. Now that I think about it this storyline sort of reminded me of reading a Fantastic Four epic tale. If you know the outcome of this book and the final villain you probably have some idea what I'm referring to or where my head is at with this storyline. It sort of felt like an FF Marvel story for some reason. I liked it. I thought it was fun aside from the hectic nature of it and there's a ton of characters. Actually another complaint I do have now that I think about it completely improvised. I didn't rehearse this at all. There's a character at the beginning of the nail, a green arrow and part of the distrust and the craziness that ensues is in part by him and some of the things that happened to this character this beloved hero Green Arrow. Later on in the story we get an update with that character but I felt like it wasn't earned. You didn't give me an exposition with the character where I went like okay I can see the arc coming full circle and you sort of have this epiphany with the character and he's going to do what he's going to do. I'm being vague on purpose guys forgive me on that one but if you read the story you know that he shows up at a crucial point and I don't know maybe I'm being too harsh on the story because it's an Elseworlds title. I thought it wasn't completely earned and that sort of felt a little Deus Ex Machina-ish maybe I don't know. The art which I haven't talked about is lovely you know having Alan Davis doing this is just phenomenal and I'd love how the characters look. It's so late 90s I loved it so much. Also Batman has the weirdest and goofiest expressions in this book which you're supposed to feel for the guy because he gets put through the wringer like like holy crap okay he goes through some stuff in this book but the expressions that he makes in the book I just I'd laugh out loud I thought they were hilarious they were easily my favorite parts in this book and it's funny because it comes from something traumatic that happens in the storyline look at this it's probably one of my favorite panels right there if you like Elseworld titles if you like alternate take on superheroes if you love the Justice League and want to see the implications of not having a moral compass on a team that you know it's not just a superhero team it is the superhero team the Justice League of America the world's greatest heroes and not having a character like Superman how does that affect the psyche of these characters how they're second-guessing themselves and how there's not that reinforcement to you know sort of bring a cohesiveness to the team and all that stuff and Superman really proves to be sort of like the the glue or the epoxy in this whole thing and not having him obviously causes quite the impact so fantastic storyline you can go in blind because it's an Elseworld title and you'll probably like it so give it a shot if you can Justice League or actually it's the nail but I like to say JLA the nail deluxe edition oversized hardcover fantastic read with wonderful late 90s artwork and just a really cool reimagining of the whole Justice League without Superman stuff so check it out if you can if you've already read it because it's a pretty old story let me know in the comment section below what you thought of it and what your favorite part of that story was and if you can let me know what your favorite DC Elseworld title is I'm very interested in finding that out guys thank you so much for tuning in thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of a week and geek them it truly means the world to me thank you so very much I've got to go also follow me on your favorite social media platform I totally forgot to say that I always say that why did I forget it anyways follow me on social media hit the bell icon so you know when new videos show up and yeah now I've got to go there we go I've got to go guys I've got more stuff to read and review for you on this channel thank you so much again for subscribing and being awesome I will catch all of you on our next episode