The New Justice League
A world without a Justice League? That seems to be an area of consternation in the DC Universe. Without a Justice League is the world safe? If the big three are missing and no one else is going to reform the League, shouldn’t someone step up?
For the last 23 weeks, the world hasn’t had a Justice League, and even though he is eager to be invited back in, Ollie Queen is busy with his election campaign for Mayor of Star City. When his secret JLA phone rings, he expects Superman or Batman on the other line. What he gets is Firestorm asking if Ollie would be interested in joining the new Justice League.
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On the team are The Bulleteer, Firehawk, Super-Chief, Firestorm, and Ambush Bug. As Ollie scolds the team for using official JLA communicators, Firehawk wants to know where The Martian Manhunter is – you can’t have a JLA without J’onn J’onz.
On cue, we are taken to the original Justice League headquarters where J’onn has been busy creating sculptures of fallen Leaguers. His act of honoring falling heroes is nothing more than self tormenting for not acting sooner to aid Ted Kord in stopping Maxwell Lord.
As an act of redemption, he has been working undercover for the last half year to bring enough evidence to the President of the United States to shut down Checkmate once and for all.
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Meanwhile, Black Adam and crew are in China, home of The Great Ten, telling them the Freedom of Power Treaty should continue to keep foreign metahuman activity out, but Kahndaq will no longer be a part of the coalition.
Through an exchange, it really appears that Isis is in charge, even though she claims that is not the case. As their relationship continues to gain strength, Black Adam certainly does appear to be under her control.
With their business complete, the trio is off to fight demons.
Which brings us back to the New Justice League. A time rift or portal has opened in Metropolis spilling all manner of pirates into the streets bringing mayhem and destruction to all. As each member of the New Justice League enters the fray, a whole group of super heroes appear on the scene to assist.
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Where did all these new Metas come from? If you are in Metropolis and Lex is handing out super powers, why not join in?
At the heart of the time rift, Firestorm discovers Skeets, and by the look of him, he’s upgraded his hardware some.
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As we know, Skeets has been a bad robot, and he becomes even worse, by turning his new laser armament on every power present. Skeets created the rift to draw someone out. Who is that someone? Guesses range from Supernova to Booster Gold to Superman himself. But my guess is none other than Rip Hunter, after all, “he knows”.
When Super-Chief steps up to take on Skeets, a quick check of his 21st Century database reveals Saganawahna’s powers only last for one hour. So Skeets creates a localized time bubble, speeds up time, and then kills Super-Chief. Yup, yet another brand newly introduced character is killed for no apparent reason.
Maybe I shouldn’t say no apparent reason, because as Super-Chief enters the after life, he is met by Manitou’s spirit, who takes the Stone, while scolding Jon Standing Bear. Standing Bear has been chastising himself since we first met him, that he can’t do anything right. Manitou’s spirit agrees, essentially quoting Uncle Ben Parker, before taking the stone and handing it to Ralph Dibny.
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If you’ve been reading DC, you know Checkmate is currently active as an arm of the United Nations, but it is only now that we find out the New Justice League’s failure prompted the UN to reinstate the organization.
And if we are talking Checkmate, we have to talk Amanda Waller. And if we talk Amanda Waller, then surely the Suicide Squad can’t be far behind. The week closes with Waller recruiting Atom Smasher as the new leader of the squad, and we are left with a parting shot of photographs of potential team members. I like this close at is ties almost directly with how the current Justice League of America selected its members.
Even though this week’s story is kind of jumpy and disjointed in how it presents info to us, I can’t help but like how things are really starting to tie together. We’re almost to the half way point, and with the OYL titles well established, it’s going to be interesting to see the back half of the year fill in the very important missing holes.
The Good
- Ambush Bug – more than comic relief, AB could be a vital clue to the mystery of 52.
- Poledancer – I want to know what her super power is!
- Bad Skeets is now Evil Skeets
- Pay close attention to the panel showing the Daily Planet newspaper
The Bad
- Super-Chief’s death
- Space Pirates?
- I really need to re-read the DC Comics Encyclopedia from cover to cover again.
After careful consideration, I have to give 52 – Week 24, 3.5 Stars. Enough intrigue, action, and well written dialogue to keep me interested, but too many references and back story information that I’m not familiar with to be the heart racing fun fest past issues have yielded.
Parting Shot
