365 Days of Defiance, Day 194: What's left in your arms when the static clears?

Tomorrow Woman! She's the woman of tomorrow...today! As featured in a comic book of yesterday.


Panels from JLA #5 (May 1997), script by Grant Morrison, pencils by Howard Porter, inks by John Dell, colors by Pat Garrahy, color separations by Heroic Age, letters by Ken Lopez
She's the first new recruit to the all-new, all-iconic Justice League, which only goes to prove: you didn't have to be on Super Friends to join the JLA. What her teammates don't know and we, the omniscient, all-powerful, and devilishly handsome audience know, is that Tomorrow Woman is a robot. An evil robot created and programmed by T. O. Morrow and Professor Ivo, charter members of the League of Evil Scientists Whose Names End in the Syllable "Oh"! She's been designed to betray and destroy the JLA from within their creamy, nougaty center.


But — you guessed it — Tomorrow Woman the robot is more human than some humans, partly because she's been programmed to evolve by proud father T.O. Morrow, but also because she's been hanging around with Superman and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and all those other good guys and with all that goodness and heroism, it just plain rubs off on her. Meanwhile, on the island of Doctor Morrow, he's kind of proud of his surrogate daughter.


The moment of truth: a tense mission where, as it does in all issues of Grant Morrison's JLA, the fate of the earth rests upon the actions of the Justice League. So this would be a dandy time for her to do the big splodey-thing and kill off the JLA, the greatest heroes of this world! And Wally West.


Of course, as happens in stories like this, Tomorrow Woman sacrifices herself to save humanity (and Wally), and despite the failure to destroy the JLA, T.O. Morrow is actually kind of happy to see her evolve. Happier=, certainly, than when Batman bursts into their HQ and beats him and Ivo to a pulp, but allow the poor guy a moment of triumph as we shed a non-snythitic tear for Tomorrow Woman, the greatest Justice Leaguer we never remember.


NEVER FORGET TOMORROW WOMAN. Also, never forget, so that we might never repeat, Electric Blue Superman.


Thus finishes the finest JLA robot-becomes-human story, made even finer by the fact it doesn't contain Red Tornado.