Justice League 1 Thoughts (Spoilers!)
I feel like I should drag the opening to this entry out. Y'know, talk about how this is a new beginning, the dawn of superheroes, et cetera, but if you follow this site you know all that.
The biggest complaint I have about this series, is that it doesn't quite feel like a brand-new world to me. But that could be for any number of reasons (chief of which is that it's *not* entirely brand-new), and I can't blame Geoff and Jim for that.
What is new about this version of the Justice League, is that it's at the center. The original League was created in 1960, appearing in DC's Brave and the Bold #28. By that time DC had already introduced two Flashes, an entire Corps worth of Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman were already decades old.
The second big launch of the League was around 1986. And while it meant to have all the big names, it ended up with only Batman as it's marquee superhero, and was sort of shoved off to the corner in terms of the DCU's narrative. (Mind you, that didn't stop it from being a well-written comic book and a classic from that era.)
And while Morrison's Justice League of America is probably the best-written version of the team to date, it took place in a DCU that had at least ten years of in-story time on it, and the less said about JLA v4, the better.
No, this time DC's taking a new approach to the JLA, making the book the centerpiece of the DCU, where we see each of the big name heroes meet for the first time ever, and we see how the world as a whole treated superheroes before people had any real knowledge of them.
Both of these things take up the majority of this first arc, set five years into DC's past, the start of the new DCU history. It makes for a very entertaining read, as we watch Batman dodge the Gotham City Police Department and learn that Green Lantern frequently has trouble with the Air Force in his town, Coast City.
Watching both Hal and Bruce interact is hilarious; Hal has so much faith in both the Green Lantern ring and himself that actually talks in the third person, and flips out when he learns Batman is "just a guy in a freaking Bat costume."
Though the issue doesn't allow us a look at the entire League, that's not really something I would level as a valid criticism. This is the first time ANY of these heroes have met in this new DC universe. Superman. Green Lantern. Wonder Woman. Batman. Aquaman. Flash. (And Cyborg, apparently.) It's a BIG deal, and just skipping past their individual interactions just so we can "get to the good part" would be a waste. Particularly when DC doesn't seem to be all that interested in telling us what happened in the past (a good thing), so after this and Action Comics are done with their origin arcs, we may never get another look at just how some of this stuff started again. (Not the worst thing. One more Superman origin and I'll have to hurt someone.)
One of the things I enjoyed most was the biggest retcon of the issue. The team's formation is now due to the first appearance of the villain Darkseid, and while he doesn't appear in this issue, we do get to see a forerunner--a Parademon. Which seemingly have been given a massive power-up, given all of what Geoff and Jim show just one to be capable of. This is definitely a threat that would require an entire League to fight.
Best of all, the mystique of the New Gods has been restored. One of my favorite panels in the comic is when Hal's ring attempts to analyze the Mother Box the parademon left behind, only to come back, "Unable to Identify", leaving Hal in utter disbelief, since the ring has all the knowledge of the Guardians of the Universe, and "the Guardians know everything". For a long time fans have begged to have the New Gods retired because they were beginning to feel like just another alien race--and DC has responded, seeking to change all of that and bring them back to a level of power and mystery that they deserve.
All-in-all, I loved this issue, and I'm looking forward to the next one eagerly.
The biggest complaint I have about this series, is that it doesn't quite feel like a brand-new world to me. But that could be for any number of reasons (chief of which is that it's *not* entirely brand-new), and I can't blame Geoff and Jim for that.
What is new about this version of the Justice League, is that it's at the center. The original League was created in 1960, appearing in DC's Brave and the Bold #28. By that time DC had already introduced two Flashes, an entire Corps worth of Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman were already decades old.
The second big launch of the League was around 1986. And while it meant to have all the big names, it ended up with only Batman as it's marquee superhero, and was sort of shoved off to the corner in terms of the DCU's narrative. (Mind you, that didn't stop it from being a well-written comic book and a classic from that era.)
And while Morrison's Justice League of America is probably the best-written version of the team to date, it took place in a DCU that had at least ten years of in-story time on it, and the less said about JLA v4, the better.
No, this time DC's taking a new approach to the JLA, making the book the centerpiece of the DCU, where we see each of the big name heroes meet for the first time ever, and we see how the world as a whole treated superheroes before people had any real knowledge of them.
Both of these things take up the majority of this first arc, set five years into DC's past, the start of the new DCU history. It makes for a very entertaining read, as we watch Batman dodge the Gotham City Police Department and learn that Green Lantern frequently has trouble with the Air Force in his town, Coast City.
Watching both Hal and Bruce interact is hilarious; Hal has so much faith in both the Green Lantern ring and himself that actually talks in the third person, and flips out when he learns Batman is "just a guy in a freaking Bat costume."
Though the issue doesn't allow us a look at the entire League, that's not really something I would level as a valid criticism. This is the first time ANY of these heroes have met in this new DC universe. Superman. Green Lantern. Wonder Woman. Batman. Aquaman. Flash. (And Cyborg, apparently.) It's a BIG deal, and just skipping past their individual interactions just so we can "get to the good part" would be a waste. Particularly when DC doesn't seem to be all that interested in telling us what happened in the past (a good thing), so after this and Action Comics are done with their origin arcs, we may never get another look at just how some of this stuff started again. (Not the worst thing. One more Superman origin and I'll have to hurt someone.)
One of the things I enjoyed most was the biggest retcon of the issue. The team's formation is now due to the first appearance of the villain Darkseid, and while he doesn't appear in this issue, we do get to see a forerunner--a Parademon. Which seemingly have been given a massive power-up, given all of what Geoff and Jim show just one to be capable of. This is definitely a threat that would require an entire League to fight.
Best of all, the mystique of the New Gods has been restored. One of my favorite panels in the comic is when Hal's ring attempts to analyze the Mother Box the parademon left behind, only to come back, "Unable to Identify", leaving Hal in utter disbelief, since the ring has all the knowledge of the Guardians of the Universe, and "the Guardians know everything". For a long time fans have begged to have the New Gods retired because they were beginning to feel like just another alien race--and DC has responded, seeking to change all of that and bring them back to a level of power and mystery that they deserve.
All-in-all, I loved this issue, and I'm looking forward to the next one eagerly.
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