Justice League International: The Later Years, Part I: Formerly Known as the Justice League / I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League

So there have been a number of revivals of the JLI premise over the years. The ones I know of are:

• The original creative team of Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire returned for two miniseries in the 2000s.
• There was a biweekly Justice League: Generation Lost series in the 2010s, mostly using JLI characters.
• A short-lived Justice League International series ran as part of the "New 52" initiative.
• Giffen and DeMatteis teamed up for a Justice League 3000 series (later 3001) with a similar tone to their JLI run, and some cameos as well.
• The 2020s have seen a couple minis focused on JLI alums: Blue & Gold and Fire & Ice. 

But if I were to read all of these, this project—already quite long!—might never end. So I am going to focus on the ones that particularly interest me. That would be the 2000s minis, of course, but also the more recent revivals. Maybe later I'll tackle Generation Lost, the New 52 JLI, and the JL3000/01 series.

This post covers the 2000s revivals. In addition to those two minis, I've picked up a couple single issues of interest to me. 

from JLA Showcase 80-Page Giant #1

"The Flashback of Notre Dame", from JLA Showcase 80-Page Giant #1 (Feb. 2000)
written by Greg Weisman, pencilled by Christopher Jones, inked by Mark Stegbauer, colored by Gene D'Angelo, lettered by Kurt Hathaway

Mostly I have read "continuity insert" stories by when they take place, not by when they were published, but I didn't discover this one until it was too late to do so; it's not included in the JLI International Omnibus volumes, nor is it even mentioned on the Cosmic Teams timeline. I think I discovered it when I looked up the JLE on Wikipedia. It's a JLE story, set between issues #21 and 22 of that title; Blue Jay is a member (he joined after The Extremist Vector, which finished in #21) and the JLE is still based in Paris (the Paris embassy was destroyed in #22). In fact, this story has Kilowog tinkering with the teleporter systems, which he was doing at the beginning of #22, so writer Greg Weisman clearly did his homework when it came to placement.

Anyway, this is a pretty short story about Captain Atom taking his fiancée on a trip to Paris... and of course things get zany, as they always do around the JLE. Specifically, he's attacked by gargoyles come to life, but it's all a misunderstanding that could have been avoided if he just spoke French! (As was constantly bemoaned in JLE.) It's fine enough, but surprisingly it's not very friendly to someone who primary knows Captain Atom primarily from his JLI appearances. Why is he called "Cameron Stewart" here, not "Nathaniel Adam"? I didn't even know he had a fiancée—in JLE, he was always flirting with Catherine Cobert!

from Batman: Gotham Knights #41

"Rubber Soul", from Batman: Gotham Knights #41 (July 2003)
written by Scott Beatty, art by Toby Cypress, lettered by Janice Chiang, colored by Noelle Giddings

I'm certainly not going around picking up every post-JLI appearance by a JLI character, but when researching when Elongated Man and Batman originally teamed up (as referenced in The Teasdale Imperative, see item #4 in the list below), I read an article that made this later Elongated Man/Batman teamup sound quite interesting... and Elongated Man is of course my favorite DC superhero.

The premise of this story is that Sue Dibny is visiting Gotham on a tour promoting the release of her latest mystery novel, husband Ralph in tow, when they're approached by Bruce Wayne in his "Matches Malone" criminal persona, who is looking for insight into a series of grotesque deaths happening in Gotham. They're not linked to Ralph's gingold—but once Ralph smells a mystery, he's staying involved anyway... and how couldn't a beststelling mystery author be of use too? (When was Sue Dibny established as a mystery novelist, anyway? Was that Starman? Been a long time since I read that.)

The story is a fun one; I love it when Batman screws with his former JLI comrades by giving them hints of his sense of humor, and writer Scott Beatty does a great job capturing both Ralph and Sue. Ralph is fun loving but serious about his work; Sue is cleverer than either man when it counts. Lots of good gags. The art by Toby Cypress is sometimes a bit hard to decipher but overall suitably atmospheric This book was very clearly part of a Ralph-and-Sue renaissance of the 2000s... alas, cut short by the events of Identity Crisis. Well worth tracking down if you're an Elongated Man fan.

from Formerly Known as the Justice League #4

"A[nother] New Beginning" / "Déjà Vu All Over Again" / "Dead Man's Hand" / "The Wrath of Manga Khan" / "A League of Their Own", from Formerly Known as the Justice League #1-6 (Sept. 2003–Feb. 2004), reprinted in Formerly Known as the Justice League (2004)
written by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, pencilled by Kevin Maguire, inked by Joe Rubinstein, lettered by Bob Lappan, colored by Lee Loughridge

The first JLI revival mini sees Maxwell Lord deciding to resurrect the JLI... sort of. With the high-profile, moon-based JLA in full swing, he decides what people need is a more accessible superhero team, and so recruits some of the has-beens from the old JLI team to populate his new "Super-Buddies": Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Elongated Man, Fire, and Captain Atom, plus L-RON to once again handle administrative duties. (I don't know when L-RON stopped being house in Despero's body, as he was back in Justice League Task Force.) Captain Marvel turns down Max's offer to join up, not looking back on his JLI membership with fondness, but his sister Mary Marvel is intrigued enough to take his place.

While Giffen & DeMatteis's original run could get quite funny at times, it was also very character-based and sometimes quite serious. This reunion series isn't going for that vibe; it's all in on the comedy. There's lots of banter here, lots of back-and-forth between the characters, lots of bickering. Which is fine, because it's so very successful! I was laughing at least once per page, if not more, especially in the first couple issues, where Max and L-RON are putting the team back together. L-RON working fast food, Captain Atom's horrible new appearance, Booster's new marriage, it's all grist for the mill, and I'm sure my wife thought I was even crazier than normal given how much I was laughing. This is all enhanced by the absurd situations the new Super-Buddies end up in; I particularly liked the group of Harvard students who became incredibly dignified street hoodlums!

Reunions are always a touchy business; most of the time, you're left thinking maybe we should have just left the original. But as Max and L-RON went around reassembling the team, I felt the nostalgia wash over me. I know I read this group's original adventures just a couple months ago, but it was so delightful to see them all again just as they were in the old days!

from Formerly Known as the Justice League #6

The diversion into Roulette capturing the Super-Buddies isn't quite as funny but still entertaining; certainly it's the most interesting Routlette appearance I can ever remember reading. Things reach a suitably comic and epic climax when Lord Manga Khan of the Cluster returns to recover L-RON. Is he going to destroy the Earth... or is he just bluffing? And will the real JLA intervene when things get out of hand? Again, lots of good jokes here, especially Max's ineffectiveness, Booster and Beetle's bickering, Batman's forays into humor, Beetle reaching out to Oracle for help, J'onn's embarrassment at having led the JLI, and Plastic Man's skepticism over Elongated Man.

I think this is one of those books that totally and precisely accomplishes what it sets out to do, and thus I feel a bit churlish complaining. But I do have two nits. One, I did sometimes feel the bickering was turned up a bit too much; this people liked each other... right? In particular, I wasn't sure why Bea was so rude to Max (and vice versa), with whom I felt she had a particularly good relationship back in the day. (See, for example, Justice League Quarterly #8 in item #10 below.) The other is that the book plays continuity a little loose, kind-of-ignoring-but-not-totally things that happened to these characters after the original Giffen/DeMatteis run. For example, Max is a cyborg here (I think this comes from the Gerard Jones JLA run, which I skipped), but Wonder Woman doesn't seem to know Booster, Beetle, or Fire... even though she led the JLA when they were on it (during the Jurgens and Vado runs)! I think in both cases it comes down to the writers picking whatever they think will be funniest, and the bit when Wonder Woman doesn't get why Fire doesn't like her is funny, but it did jar to read this so shortly after the Jurgens and Vado runs.

from JLA Classified #5

I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League, from JLA Classified #4-9 (Apr.-Late Aug. 2005), reprinted in Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 3 (2024)
written by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, pencilled by Kevin Maguire, inked by Joe Rubinstein, lettered by Bob Lappan, colored by David Baron

This story came out after Identity Crisis, but is clearly set before it; it would be last hurrah for these characters. (Shortly after this, I suppose, Sue Dibny and Ted Kord would both be brutally murdered; the latter by Max Lord in a moment of character assassination. Oh, and then Max would be killed by Wonder Woman. Though the closing caption says they all lived happily ever after, so perhaps in Giffen & DeMatteis's minds, Identity Crisis and Countdown to Infinite Crisis just didn't happen.)

We get a second run of the reunion here; as they say, "Second verse, same as the first: a little bit louder and a little bit worse!" Which is to say, I enjoyed this just fine but not as much as its immediate precessor, which had a much better hit rate when it came to the jokes. I don't think anything here was bad per se, but I was definitely not laughing as much as I did in the first book. It has its moments: it was fun to see Guy and Kara again, in particular. The foray into the dark parallel universe felt like the weakest part, though it was nice when the characters finally pulled together at the end. Honestly, I wanted more of the Super-Buddies in the real world, which is when I think they're at their strongest.

from JLA Classified #9

Still, the story did rectify one of the problems I had with the previous one; we get some more serious character moments and references to the Vado run all in one! When the Super-Buddies end up in Hell (or is it?), they encounter the dead soul of Ice. Guy and Fire are desperate to get her out of the underworld, but in a classic Orpheus moment, Fire looks back and Ice vanishes. It's totally in character and totally devastating, a really well done moment from the whole creative team.

Reading these reunion stories made me a bit surprised that there hasn't been a more recent attempt to revive the JLI (or, perhaps, a JLI show). Surely its character-based workplace humor is totally the vibe Millennials love! Market it as a DC version of Parks and Rec, c'mon! Obviously I'd buy it.

This is the antepenultimate in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers Blue and Gold and Fire & Ice. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Justice League #1-6 / Justice League International #7-12 (May 1987–Apr. 1988)
2. Justice League International #13-21 (May 1988–Dec. 1988)
3. Justice League International #22-25 / Justice League America #26-30 / Justice League Europe #1-6 (Jan. 1989–Sept. 1989) 
4. Justice League America #31-36 / Justice League Europe #7-12 (Oct. 1989–Mar. 1990)
5. Justice League America #37 / Justice League Europe #13-21 (Apr. 1990–Dec. 1990)
6. Justice League America #38-50 / Justice League Europe #22 (May 1990–May 1991)
7. Justice League America #51-52 / Justice League Europe #23-28 (Feb. 1991–July 1991) 
8. Justice League America #53-60 / Justice League Europe #29-36 (Aug. 1991–Mar. 1992) 
9. Justice League America #61-65 / Justice League Europe #37-42 (Apr. 1992–Sept. 1992)
10. Justice League America #66-69 / Justice League Europe #43-50 (Sept. 1992–May 1993) 
11. Justice League America #70-77 / Justice League Task Force #1-3 (Jan. 1993–Aug. 1993) 
12. Justice League America #78-83 / Justice League International #51-52 / Justice League Task Force #4-8 (June 1993–Jan. 1994)
13. Justice League America #84-85 / Justice League International #53-57 / Justice League Task Force #9 (Aug. 1993–Feb. 1994) 
14. Justice League America #86-88 / Justice League International #58-64 / Justice League Task Force #10-12 (Nov. 1993–May 1994) 
15. Justice League America #89-92 / Justice League International #65-68 / Justice League Task Force #13-16 (June 1994–Sept. 1994)

Black Panther: All This and the World, Too by John Ridley and Germán Peralta

Black Panther: All This and the World, Too

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 2022-23
Read: December 2025

Writer: John Ridley

Artist: Germán Peralta

Color Artists: Ceci De La Cruz, Sebastian Cheng & Jesus Aburtov

Letterer: Joe Sabino

While I enjoyed the set-up of volume 1 of John Ridley's Black Panther a lot, I found what was done with that set-up in volume 2 pretty awful, to be honest. The third and final volume is better than volume 2, thankfully... but as it's a direct continuation, it's hard to move past how heavy-handed some of the plot turns in volume 2 were, as the story of volume 3 directly depends on them.

This volume opens with Black Panther operating as chairman of the Avengers, still no longer welcome in Wakanda. The world's Internet infrastructure is taken over, and when T'Challa goes to investigate, it turns out that it's one of his own people who's done it, the very friend whose death kicked the whole thing off in volume 1. His enemy has the power to neutralize the Avengers, so T'Challa must take him down on his own with his own allies.

It's fine. Some of the twists are good, some are heavy-handed; some moments feel earned, some do not. I think overall, Ridley's run had the core of a good idea, an interrogation of the extend to which T'Challa was willing to go to protect Wakanda, but it wasn't done in a good way, because far too many characters judge T'Challa by a weird standard of ethics. One of the best parts of Priest's run (with which Ridley's is very obviously in dialogue) was how it treated Black Panther a king, not a superhero—what would a superpowered king do in a world of superpowers? how would he act to protect his nation and its interests? Ridley's run wonders if there might be ways in which T'Challa thus might go too far... but it doesn't do this interestingly, because everyone judges T'Challa for his choices right away without considering the rationale or consequences of them. To say what T'Challa does is bad because it's not what other superheroes do is a really boring way to criticize T'Challa. At his best, T'Challa was a square peg in a round hole, but instead of exploring how that lack of fit plays out, Ridley's run just asserts he ought to have been a round peg all along. Why do I need to read a fifteen-issue run devoted to telling me the character I'm reading is bad? It's cynical and uninteresting, and I'm worried this all leaves the character in a bad place for future stories as well.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Reading Roundup Wrapup: January 2026

Pick of the month: Formerly Known as the Justice League by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Joe Rubinstein. I have laughed at quite a lot at many Justice League comics by Giffen, DeMatteis, and their artistic collaborators at this point, but these six issues probably have the highest laugh-to-page ratio out of almost anything they've done.

All books read:

1. Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 (part 1) by Dan Vado, Mark Waid, Marc Campos, et al.
2. Ultimate Black Panther: Gods and Kings by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto
3. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller
4. Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Three: Escape by John Jackson Miller, Marco Castiello, Vincenzo Acunzo, et al.
5. Star Trek / Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez
6. Ship of Theseus by V. M. Straka
7. DC Finest: Events: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part One by Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Doug Moench, George Pérez, et al.
8. Ultimate Black Panther: Darkness and Light by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto
9. Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 5 by Curt Swan, George Klein et al.
10. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Starcrusher Trap by Mike W. Barr and the Fillbach Brothers
11. Star Wars: Jedi vs Sith by Darko Macan, Ramon F. Bachs, and Raul Fernandez
12. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy by Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, and Derek Charm
13. Formerly Known as the Justice League by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Joe Rubinstein
14. Doctor Who #33: Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale
15. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Strange Allies by Ryder Windham and Ben Dewey
16. Avatar: The Last Airbender: Team Avatar Treasury: Katara and the Pirate’s Silver / Toph Beifong’s Metalbending Academy / Suki, Alone by Faith Erin Hicks and Peter Wartman
17. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 5 by Mike Johnson and Tony Shasteen
18. Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 3 (part 1/part 2/part 3/part 4/part 5/part 6) by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, et al.
19. An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire, 54 BC–AD 409 by David Mattingly
20. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Enemy Within by Jeremy Barlow and Brian Koschak
21. The Legend of Korra: Patterns in Time edited by Rachel Roberts
22. Gabriel Gale’s Ages of Oz: A Dark Descent by Lisa Fiedler, illustrated by Sebastián Giacobino
23. Star Trek: Manifest Destiny by Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, and Angel Hernandez
24. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Sith Hunters by Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, Vincenç Villagrasa, and Vincente Ibañez
25. Blue and Gold by Dan Jurgens, Ryan Sook, Cully Hamner, Kevin Maguire, et al.
26. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Defenders of the Lost Temple by Justin Aclin and Ben Bates 

Almost entirely comics and/or tie-ins! 

All books acquired:

1. Star Trek: Manifest Destiny by Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, and Angel Hernandez
2. The Jeeves Omnibus 1 by P. G. Wodehouse 
3. JLA: A Midsummer’s Nightmare: the deluxe edition by Mark Waid, Fabian Nicieza, Jeff Johnson, Darick Robertson, et al. 
4. Hawkeye: Private Eye by Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero, and Michael Walsh 
5. Blue and Gold by Dan Jurgens, Ryan Sook, Cully Hamner, Kevin Maguire, et al.
6. Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville by Joanne Starer and Natacha Bustos
7. Alan Scott: The Green Lantern by Tim Sheridan, Cian Tormey, et al.
8. Prez: Setting a Dangerous President by Mark Russell, Ben Caldwell, et al.
9. Age of Bronze: The Story of the Trojan War, Book 3: Betrayal, Part One by Eric Shanower

Almost all comics! 

Currently reading:

• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Smuggler’s Code by Justin Aclin and Eduardo Ferrara
• DC Finest: Science Fiction: The Gorilla World by John Broome, Sid Gerson, Murphy Anderson, et al.

Up next in my rotations:

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
2. Getting There by Manjula Padmanabhan 
3. Carpatho-Ukraine in the Twentieth Century: A Political and Legal History by Vincent Shandor 
4. Star Trek: Boldly Go, Volume 2 by Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, Megan Levens, and Tony Shasteen

Books remaining on "To be read" list: 665 (down 5)

Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds (MIT Press, 2017)

A few years ago, when I was working on revising the chapter about Frankenstein from my never-finished book project, I decided I probably should update my citations of the novel from the 1990s Norton Critical Edition I'd been using. So I looked around for a more modern critical edition, specifically one that uses the 1818 first edition as its copytext (which I find more interesting than the 1831 version, which is what the Penguin Classics edition uses). I came across this one from the MIT Press, published for the bicentennial of Frankenstein in 2018, aimed—as the subtitle says—at "scientists, engineers, and creators of all kinds." 

What this means in practice is that the book contains footnotes by a whole team of annotators (almost fifty), as well as seven short essays. The annotations and essays focus not on, say, tracing literary allusions and sources or making connections to literary theory or explicating biographical references, like you might see in a Norton Critical Edition or a Penguin Classic, but highlighting issues of science and responsibility.

I updated my citations as I revised my chapter, but I also added the book to my reading list, figuring 1) I was curious about the project as a whole, and 2) you certainly can't read Frankenstein too many times. (Especially if you study nineteenth-century literature and science!) Over Christmas break, I finally got around to reading it. This was my third time reading the novel in its entirety, though over the years I've dipped in and out of it many times. Here I thus want to focus on the paratext and not the text... though I will say that rereading the novel made me very much conscious of how long it has been since I've taught it (over a decade), and I would love to do so again... I feel like at this point in my life, I could probably get a whole semester out of the one book! I am not sure where an opportunity exists for me to so that in the near future, though.

Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds
edited by David H. Guston, Ed Finn, and Jason Scott Robert

Annotated edition published: 2017
Novel originally published: 1818
Acquired: May 2021
Read: December 2025

As I mentioned earlier, the annotations here focus on highlighting issues of science and social responsibility. Sometimes they do that by contextualizing the novel in the science and debates of its own time, but more often, I felt, they raise contemporary issues and then pose a lot of broad questions. I felt like overall they were probably intended to nudge undergraduates reading the novel in a college class into asking themselves questions that could provoke discussion.

I have two issues with this, and one I think isn't very fair to the project. This is that I actually don't think Mary Shelley was very interested in what we now think of as "science," because what we now think of as "science" was only just coming into existence at the time. This is something explained really well in, for example, Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison's Objectivity (2007) and Patricia Fara's Science: A Four Thousand Year History (2009), both of which explicate how it was in the nineteenth century when we came to understand science as its own epistemology with its own ethical commitments. Recall, of course, that there was no such figure as the "scientist" when Frankenstein was written! The annotations in the MIT Frankenstein treat the novel as representative of issues that didn't totally exist as the time it was written. Now, should an edition aimed at undergraduates delve into these distinctions? Almost certainly not to the extent of engaging with Daston and Galison or Fara, sure. But it's a distinction the novel itself draws: when Victor goes to university, he is frustrated that modern science focuses on "realities of little worth" (29). It classifies and organizes, and nothing else. What Victor wants are "chimeras of boundless grandeur" (29)... but he got those from alchemy, not science! So how can the novel be a critique of science when Victor's ambitions come from outside science?

I think it can, Shelley was clearly engaging with the ideas of the new approach to science, but I did feel like the MIT edition elided the distinctions that the novel itself was drawing when it discussed Victor's education. Even if Shelley didn't intend the novel to discuss "science" or "the scientist" as we now understand them, that doesn't prevent the novel from having something to say about them. Victor may not have been a scientist in 1818, but he certainly was one by 1900. Indeed, he is the scientist, the representation that precedes all others! It's an interesting evolution, but one that the annotations obscure more than they reveal I think. (Alfred Nordmann's essay does flag this up, but other than that, it doesn't come up much.)

But this might all be unfair as a critique; if the MIT edition spent a bunch of time explaining the history of science and drawing a distinction between pre- and post-Enlightenment epistemology, that probably would undermine its stated project of "reflect[ing] on how science is framed and understood by the public" and "contextualiz[ing] new scientific and technological innovations" (xi).

This leads me into my second point, though, which is that I felt like in their effort to accomplish this, the annotations often have a hectoring tone... and overlook a major aspect of what makes science "dangerous." They pose a lot of questions, but footnotes are just not a good space in which to develop interesting questions, they're too constrained. So the footnotes have this vibe of "did you think of consequences, STEM majors? well? well?" To tie into my previous point, the attempt to use the footnotes to critique science as an enterprise fails a bit because twenty-first-century science is so different from what Shelley was engaging with. For example, one footnote reads, "Mary adds the troubling notion that science itself—however based in rationality and a drive for human progress—may inadvertently create disruptions... which override the ability of society's institutions to contain them" (147n14). But where in this book has science ever claimed to be "based in rationality and a drive for human progress"? That's not a claim Victor ever made, that's not what underlies his ambitions at all, or even Walton's. Where does the novel ever engage with "society's institutions" and their attempts to control science? Victor is literally just a guy, there's no kind of engagement with the broader societal context of the scientific enterprise. Which is fine for Shelley, as such a thing was only just coming into existence when she wrote, but undermines the MIT edition's attempt to claim this is going on in the book. Elizabeth Bear's essay does point out that "any scientific utility in his [Victor's] work is of very little interest to him" (231); his motivations just aren't what we think of as scientific ones.

Moreover, there is huge problem with all the annotations' and some of the essays' discussions of science going too far... namely, they just seem to treat science 'going too far' as something that just happens, thanks to the hubris of scientists. For example, in Anne K. Mellor's otherwise strong essay at the end, she mentions "the ethical problems inherent in the most recent advances in genetics: the introduction of germ-line engineering through CRISPR-Cas9 techniques of DNA alteration and the current scientific possibility of producing what Victor Frankenstein dreamed of, a superhuman 'designer baby'" (244). But what Mellor (and most of the edition's other contributors) don't actually explain is 1) why are these things bad, and 2) why would people do these things if they are obviously bad. They just 1) take it as read that these things are bad, and 2) seem to think that scientists will go around doing bad things just because. (The essays are generally better about this than the annotations, presumably because they have more space; maybe the real moral of this edition is that it's impossible to squeeze thought-provoking complexity into short footnotes, or even long ones.)

The first is a bit annoying. What makes a "designer baby" bad? A couple generations ago, there was a panic about "test tube babies" when IVF came along... and IVF is totally normalized now. Are we just freaking out about the next thing that's "against nature" for a kneejerk reason?

But the second issue really grinds my gears, because it seems that why scientific discoveries or technological developments are "misused" is a huge blind spot in a lot of discussion of science or technology. Is it because scientists are just cackling manically, or because they're oblivious?

No, it's neither. In this volume, only Cory Doctorow gets it right, in his essay at the back. People don't just "misuse" technologies because they want to; they do it for power. Specifically, in our world, that usually ends up meaning state power or financial power. The problem with splitting the atom is that it was used by nations to exert dominion over other nations; the reason someone might make a "designer baby" is that someone else will pay for it. It's not really about science or technology at all, it's about neocolonialism and global capitalism. That's what we need to afraid of. But most of the writers and annotators here focus on the science and technology itself.

Doctorow's essay, "I've Created a Monster! (and So Can You)," does an excellent, accessible job of laying this out, on both the individual and societal level. "How the railroads were built was the result of individual and often immoral choices. How the railroads were used was the result of a collective choice made by all the people in your social network" (211-2). Being Doctorow, he uses social networks as his example of a technology that gets (mis)used for profit, but I like that because it's accessible and clear: "A service like Facebook was inevitable, but how Facebook works was not" (212). The same goes for nuclear technology or germ-line genetic editing or whatever technology you want to analogize to Frankenstein. Too many people making this book focus on the choices of individual scientists, when what's really at stake are the choices of individuals with financial or political power, and the choice of society when it comes to regulation. The warning of this MIT edition is aimed at the wrong audience; if we want to prevent the misuse of science, we don't need an edition annotated for "scientists, engineers, and creators of all kinds," we need an edition annotated for the military-industrial complex and venture capitalists.

I'm guessing they'd be even less likely to read it, though. 

(The other essay that I thought got it right was Jane Maienschein and Kate MacCord's "Changing Conceptions of Human Nature," which focuses on Victor's education moreso than the creature.)

Also, as far as being a critical edition goes, I was a bit frustrated that the book claims to have a "painstakingly line-edited and amended version of the original manuscript" prepared by Charles E. Robinson (xii)... with absolutely no explanation of what this means! I get this is aimed at STEM undergraduates not literary scholars, but surely a half-page "note on the text" would not have gone amiss so that (say) a literary scholar choosing to assign the text knows the provenance of the version they are assigning! A weird misstep, in my opinion; it's a minimal-effort thing that people who don't care can just skip, but people who do care very much need!

Justice League International Year Eight, Part II: Judgment Day (JLA #89-92 / JLI #65-68 / JLTF #13-16)

Finally, at last, we come to the end of the Justice League's pre-Zero Hour run... and thus the end of my continuous reading; from here I'll be jumping ahead a bit. Here we have the final issues of Justice League International and Justice League Quarterly, as both series were cancelled with Zero Hour. (The JLI lettercol indicates more issues of JLQ were planned, though; it mentions an all–Tasmanian Devil issue by David De Vries and Kiki Chansamone which never happened.)

The Justice League did continue from this point, with JLI-era characters in its roster still like Booster Gold and Fire... but nothing I've seen or read of this era is even remotely appealing. As far as I can tell, Justice League America continued to lean  further into the "extreme" 1990s aesthetic, and of course, it was paired with Extreme Justice, which was surely even moreso. I could barely stomach the last year or so of JLA; I don't need more of this.

(Christopher Priest did take over on Justice League Task Force, which seems interesting, but I'll save reading that for another time.) 

Reading this era in order is pretty straightforward. Mostly the three series rotate between each other, one issue leading into the next. The only time there's not a direct continuation is between JLA #91 and JLI #15, so that's where I recommend reading the last two issues of JLQ.

from Justice League Task Force #14

Judgment Day / "Heroes Passage", from Justice League America #89-90, Justice League Task Force #13-14, & Justice League International vol. 2 #65-66 (June-July 1994) and Justice League America #91 (Aug. 1994), reprinted in Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 (2017)
written by Dan Vado, Mark Waid, and Gerard Jones; pencils by Marc Campos, Sal Velluto, and Chuck Wojtkiewicz; inks by Ken Branch, Jeff Albrecht, and Bob Dvorak (with Robert Jones & Rich Rankin); letters by Clem Robins, Bob Pinaha, and Kevin Cunningham; colors by Gene D'Angelo and Glenn Whitmore

Judgment Day was a six-part story that rotated through all three Justice League monthlies: the American branch, international branch, and Task Force all teamed up to deal with a world-threatening menace. This is the Overmaster. Unsurprisingly, this story has all the negatives of all the recent stories from all three titles: bad art, especially by Marc Campos, over-the-top melodrama, incoherent plotting. Much of the story is never really explained. What is the connection between this Overmaster and the one that threatened the Detroit-era League? How did he cause all the disasters around the Earth before he even got there? Why was he going around empowering random people? Why doesn't he just destroy the Earth right away instead of imposing this countdown?

There are some nuggets of a good concept here. I liked the idea that Booster encountered a situation where he knew things were going to turn out fine in the future... but then the events of Zero Hour meant that his future knowledge actually wasn't right. But all the stuff about Booster being dead and not dead was painted with way too broad a brush. I did like the stuff between Booster and Beetle, though; I feel like their friendship was largely not utilized during Dan Vado's run so it was good to see it in play here. The idea no one was being born or dying is creepy.

On the other hand, we once again get an ineffectual Wonder Woman up against a rash Captain Atom when it comes to command of the League. I don't know why we needed to see this play out three stories in a row; it's insulting to both characters. (And when and how did Atom even become a League member again?) This time we get the added layer of a UN-threatened League shutdown from Maxwell Lord. I'm not sure why Max was kept on as a lead character after Breakdowns when he has done so very little of interest except occasionally be the face of UN interference.

The big aspect of this story is the death of Ice. It comes across as a bit of a Chewbacca moment: "kill the family dog." That is to say, kill the nicest character because it will garner the most sympathy. In execution, it doesn't work very well. Ice had been absent from the League for a long time, and since her return, hasn't even really felt like Ice in any meaningful sense. She spends most of Judgment Day under the Overmaster's mind control, which is not really an interesting way for a character to spend their final appearance. Surely an effective character death should remind you of why you liked someone before they get killed off, but there's none of that here.

The one thing I did like about the death of Ice was the actual issue in which it happened, JLTF #14, certainly the best issue of the whole crossover. As the League acts to stop the Overmaster, we keep cutting to T. O. Morrow and a couple other villains; every time the League does something, we see Morrow cross it off of a list of things he knows are going to happen. The culminates in him crossing Ice's death off the list. It's a surprisingly effective mechanic from writer Mark Waid, giving the death of Ice some impact.

Lastly, Dan Vado and Marc Campos's run finishes out with a coda issue about how the death of Ice affected the team. The characters snarl and posture a lot; the potential drama of Fire dealing with this is of course squandered by bad writing and worse art.

from Justice League Quarterly #16

"Visions of Glory" / "The Heart of Darkness" / "The Sleeper Awakens" / "Guardian Angel", from Justice League Quarterly #16-17 (Fall-Winter 1994)
written by Paul Kupperberg, Charlie Bracey, and Andy Mangels; pencilled by Vince Giarrano, Rick Stasi, Curt Swan, Khato, Danny Rodriguez, Carlos Franco, and Phil Jimenez; inked by Vince Giarrano, Dick Ayers, Jose Marzan, Khato, Andrew Pepoy, Richard Space, Rich Rankin, and John Stokes; lettered by Albert De Guzman, Gaspar, Agnes Pinaha, Chris Eliopoulos, Bob Pinaha, and Clem Robins; colored by Patricia Mulvihill, Jerry Nicholas, Phil Allen, Greg Rosewall, Robbie Busch, Scott Ballman, and Greg Wright

The first of the last two issues of Justice League Quarterly seems pretty random: it's an all–General Glory issue. In the monthlies, General Glory last did something other than appear in a crowd shot back during Breakdowns, so around three years ago. I'm not sure why editorial decided he needed a whole book devoted to him!

But I'm not going to complain because this is pretty good stuff. There's a frame story set after Judgment Day; after its events, General Glory reverted to his Joe Jones form—and had a heart attack. He's been hospitalized alongside a paralyzed hero cop, and Jones spend their time together telling the cop stories from the General Glory comic books published after the General disappeared. This provides a frame story for four "flashback" stories—though we know none of them happened. The first is a Kirby monster comic pastiche, with pitch-perfect art from Rick Stasi and Dick Ayers; the second a bit of a Batman pastiche. These were both really good pastiche... but I didn't really see the point. Writer Paul Kupperberg did something similar in an earlier issue of JLQ (see item #9 in the list below), but there to comedic effect.

There is good comedy in the other two stories. The Dark Knight Returns parody is hilarious: "The rest of the world merely visits, never getting deeper into my heart and soul than the foyer of my life. Me, I live down in the cellar, alone, the dry-rot of my discontent eating away at the timbers of my emotional support." Amazing! The Image parody isn't quite as funny, but it has its moments still. (It is a bit grating that here in JLQ, Kupperberg is making fun of the Image aesthetic while over in JLA, they're just ripping it off. Either it's good or it's not, folks, pick a lane!) The frame story is surprisingly good, too, aided by some strong art from Vince Giarrino. It ends with the debut of a new General Glory. Unfortunately, I think this guy never appeared again for two decades until Geoff Johns (of course, it's always Geoff Johns) brutally killed him to prove a situation was serious.

The very last issue of JLQ has a Global Guardians lead feature; I thought we'd finally gotten past these guys but I guess not. Like too many of them, it's more about setting up a new status quo than actually telling an interesting story. Plus this one is a lot about something happening in some kind of series called... "Primal Force"? What even is that? Did the Global Guardians ever get an ongoing feature? I doubt it, and I'm not sure why JLQ spent so much time trying to position them for one. The other two stories here focus on Captain Atom and Maxima. The Captain Atom one is fine; it's nice to see a post-resurrection story where he's not a dumb jarhead but though the idea here is decent the execution didn't grab me. The Maxima one is surprisingly good, as Maxima struggles to help a young teenage runaway forced to work as a prostitute. It's a bit on-the-nose but I liked it a lot. It's too bad we didn't spend more of Maxima's time in the League delving into her complexities like this. Some great art by the great Phil Jimenez.

from Justice League International vol. 2 #67

"Silver Ages" / "Family Troubles", from Justice League Task Force #15 and Justice League International vol. 2 #67 (Aug. 1994)
stories by Mark Waid and Gerard Jones, pencils by Sal Velluto and Anthony Williams, inks by Jeff Albrecht and Luke McDonnell, letters by Bob Pinaha and Clem Robins, colors by Phil Allen and Gene D'Angelo 

This linked pair of issues has the League continuing to deal with the fallout of Ice's death. A tabloid outfit tries to get details on her; the League agrees to not speak to the press, but Blue Beetle breaks the silence, both to get the truth out there, and to use the money to pay Booster's medical bills. It has its moments, but there's too much melodramatic posing and snarling. Clearly a lot of these issues are devoted to shuffling off the board the characters who won't play a role in the post-Zero Hour League, like Doctor Light and Power Girl. (Did the Power Girl pregnancy storyline ever get resolved anywhere? Honestly, I kind of hope not.)

from Justice League Task Force #16

Return of the Hero!, from Justice League America #92, Justice League Task Force #16, and Justice League International vol. 2 #68 (Sept. 1994)
written by Christopher Priest; pencilled by Luke Ross, Greg LaRocque, and Phil Jimenez; inked by Cramer, Banning, Faucher, & Marzan Jr., Rich Rankin, and John Stokes; colored by Gene D'Angelo and Dave Grafe; letters by Clem Robins, Bob Pinaha, and Kevin Cunningham

Lastly, we finish out with a three-part story called Return of the Hero! The premise of this one is interesting: it turns out the Justice League had a sixth founding member we didn't know about, Triumph, who accidentally eliminated himself and the enemy the League was fighting from time. Triumph is brought back amid the timeline fluctuations of Zero Hour, along with the aliens he was fighting. But how can he get the League to help him when 1) they're in mourning for Ice, and 2) they don't remember he ever existed? This is by Priest, so it has a lot of good moments: Triumph's original story, the League needing to take a taxi to defeat the aliens in D.C., Ralph's self-realization about his role in the League, the Tasmanian Devil finally revealing his origin, L-RON in Despero's body. 

But it is brought down a bit by the repetitive over-the-top arguments and fights. I get that the League is under strain here but it feels like everyone says the same thing five times. And Triumph's own emotional throughline seems a bit muddled. I'm not totally sure what point is being made with him here.

This ends with the League in tatters... yet again. But like I said, that's enough for me for now! On to the returns of the original JLI team. 

This is the fifteenth in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers Formerly Known as the Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Justice League #1-6 / Justice League International #7-12 (May 1987–Apr. 1988)
2. Justice League International #13-21 (May 1988–Dec. 1988)
3. Justice League International #22-25 / Justice League America #26-30 / Justice League Europe #1-6 (Jan. 1989–Sept. 1989) 
4. Justice League America #31-36 / Justice League Europe #7-12 (Oct. 1989–Mar. 1990)
5. Justice League America #37 / Justice League Europe #13-21 (Apr. 1990–Dec. 1990)
6. Justice League America #38-50 / Justice League Europe #22 (May 1990–May 1991)
7. Justice League America #51-52 / Justice League Europe #23-28 (Feb. 1991–July 1991) 
8. Justice League America #53-60 / Justice League Europe #29-36 (Aug. 1991–Mar. 1992) 
9. Justice League America #61-65 / Justice League Europe #37-42 (Apr. 1992–Sept. 1992)
10. Justice League America #66-69 / Justice League Europe #43-50 (Sept. 1992–May 1993) 
11. Justice League America #70-77 / Justice League Task Force #1-3 (Jan. 1993–Aug. 1993) 
12. Justice League America #78-83 / Justice League International #51-52 / Justice League Task Force #4-8 (June 1993–Jan. 1994)
13. Justice League America #84-85 / Justice League International #53-57 / Justice League Task Force #9 (Aug. 1993–Feb. 1994) 
14. Justice League America #86-88 / Justice League International #58-64 / Justice League Task Force #10-12 (Nov. 1993–May 1994) 

Black Panther: Wakanda by Evan Narcisse et al.

Wakanda

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 2022-23
Read: November 2025

Writers: Stephanie Williams, Evan Narcisse, Adam Serwer, Ho Che Anderson, John Ridley, Brandon Thomas

Pencillers: Paco Medina, Ibraim Roberson, Sean Hill, Julian Shaw, José Luís, Natacha Bustos
Inkers: Walden Wong & Elisabetta D'Amico, Ibraim Roberson, Le Beau with Keith Champagne, Julian Shaw, José Luís, Natacha Bustos

Color Artists: Bryan Valenza, Andrew Dalhouse, Jordie Bellaire

Letterer: Joe Sabino

During John Ridley's run on Black Panther, Marvel also published Wakanda, a five-issue miniseries of stories focusing on various non-T'Challa Wakandan characters; they seem to mostly be set between volumes two and three, while T'Challa is in exile.

The first is a Shuri-focused story (creatively titled "Shuri"), where she battles Spider-Man foe Rhino, who's been smuggled into Wakanda to take advantage of T'Challa's absence. The story itself is fine; I always like a bit of Shuri, and writer Stephanie Williams does a good job with her relationship with her mother. I also liked the vibrant, expressive art of Paco Medina (who I recollect from a good Young Avengers Presents story).

The second story focuses on M'Baku, the former rebel who is now the regent of the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. I really enjoyed the previous M'Baku-focused story from co-writer Evan Narcisse, so I was pretty disappointed in this tale, which clearly suffers from trying to cram way too much into a single issue. Too much dialogue, too many characters, too much backstory, too many turns in the plot. The art struggles to get it all in. That said, Narcisse is always up to something interesting, and I really hope someday he gets to cook with a space-based Wakanda ongoing, because I think he could do some strong stuff with M'Baku and company.

Why does he think a whole country is going to be vulnerable because one guy is missing?
from Wakanda #1 (script by Stephanie Williams, art by Paco Medina and Walden Wong & Elisabetta D'Amico)

The worst story in the book is certainly the Killmonger-focused one, the only one to be set outside the timeframe of Ridley's ongoing; it covers a trial when Killmonger was a young member of Ulysses Klaw's criminal organization, where a bunch of recruits were made to climb a mountain together and also secretly kill each other off. Even in the realm of supervillainy, I'm not convinced this is a good way to create a secret organization, I don't think the story is very consistent with other depictions of Killmonger's youth (most recently the miniseries named after him, though admittedly, I thought that miniseries wasn't very good either), and the story has way too many characters who are hard to tell apart.

Was all of this backstory in Tosin's previous spotlight story? I don't remember it.
from Wakanda #4 (script by John Ridley, art by Julian Shaw)

There's then two stories, one about Tosin the angry young Wakandan from Ridley's run, and one about Okoye, the one remaining member of the Dora Milaje. These are both fine but not up to much; I didn't care for the art in the Tosin one, and while I appreciate the attempt to flesh out him and his world, it didn't really resonate with what we have already seen of him.

Like, who are these guys?
from Wakanda #3 (script by Evan Narcisse, art by Natacha Bustos)

Lastly, the end of the book collects a bunch of back-ups that originally ran in each issue, about the history of the Black Panthers. These are probably more interesting if you're more au fait with the continuity of the wider Marvel universe than I am. I did note that Jack Kirby's run has been retconned as happening to T'Challa's father, T'Chaka, when he was Black Panther. Boo! Why can't we have whimsy? I did really like Natacha Bustos's art, though.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Our Year of "Kelsey"

Way back in Spring 2018, my second semester as a professor, I had a student—we'll call her Kelsey—take AWR 101 with me. I liked Kelsey a lot, she was smart and did the reading and had interesting things to say about it. Unfortunately, Kelsey failed the class; I forget exactly why now, but I think it was because she just didn't turn in a final paper.

That must have not scared her off, because Kelsey took me again in Spring 2019, for AWR 201, after filling her 101 credit with a community college course. Unfortunately, she failed again, because once again she did not submit a final paper. I got to know Kelsey more this semester. She had a job at a local amusement park, and one time she told me a story about how she missed the last bus home and the battery on her electric scooter was low, and she ended up having to walk from there back to her dorm, which took four hours... she made it home at 6am! I told her if she ever needed anything, she should call me.

She took me for AWR 201 again in Spring 2020. Unfortunately, Spring 2020 was a bad time to take classes if you struggled with school to begin with. She scraped through with a D, though.

That summer, I got an e-mail from her. "Do you remember how you said I should get in touch if I ever needed help?" it said. I called her back.

Unfortunately, Kelsey had fallen victim to a rental scam. She'd moved back home with her family once the pandemic began, but her plan was to move into an apartment that summer and resume her job at the amusement park. When her mother dropped her off at the apartment, the doors were all locked; the landlord apologize for never having sent her the keys, and told her that if she hired a locksmith, he'd reimburse her. A locksmith came, replaced all the locks, and then Kelsey's mother drove back home.

The next morning, the apartment's maintenance guy was very surprised to find someone living in an unoccupied unit.

It turned out there's a scam, where people from foreign countries will take a real apartment listing and duplicate it, pricing it just a bit lower. Then they make off with your deposit money and whatever else they can get while they string you along. The maintenance guy called the police; by the time I got there, this was all sorted out... but Kelsey had to go. So I rented a U-Haul, and we put some of her stuff in a storage unit she owned, and the bigger stuff in our garage, and Kelsey crashed with us for a few weeks until she was able to sort out a new living situation with some people she knew from school.

I periodically heard from her after that. Her grades got bad enough she had to drop out of school for a while while she worked to make money.

In Spring 2024, I got a cryptic text from her: "It turns out living outside isn't as romantic as I'd imagined."

She'd ended up in a spiral where she fell behind on car payments and lost her car, this meant she had a hard time keeping up with one of her part-time jobs and she lost it, but that meant she couldn't make rent, so she was evicted, and then she lived in a hotel until her savings ran out, so she checked her dog into daycare and spent the night trying to sleep in a park! This was January. I mean, we do live in Tampa, but it can still get pretty cold.

So once again, Kelsey crashed with us for a few weeks, until she was able to sort things out with her boyfriend in Missouri, and she headed off to live with him.

Unfortunately, he dumped her on Christmas. She made her way back to Florida, and we told her she could once again crash with us until she got back on her feet. She has family here in Florida, but does not get along with them very well.

What we did not expect is that she would end up living with us for a year! Kelsey's goal was to get a government job so that she could get back on her feet financially, but also get the benefit of free community college, so she could also get back on her feet academically and finally finish her degree. This took a long time. She was constantly applying to jobs, getting interviews sometimes, getting strung along by jobs that promised her good things that never materialized. She helped out around the house some, watched the kids occasionally, but mostly tried to stay out of our way, I think always feeling like she was imposing. She did eventually restart her job at the theme park for a little bit of money.

Finally, in Fall 2025, she got an offer and a real job! It took a while, but she finally got enough money to get a car... and got into an accident like a week a later. But while we were gone for Christmas, she moved into her new apartment.

It's been an interesting thing—I don't know that we've kept it secret, but we haven't gone out of our way to talk about it either, so few people in our lives really know about it. I am happy to finally get my office back! But also I worry about Kelsey; it seems to me she is very much an example of what people call the "precariat," just one bad day away from the edge. I hope she can get back on her feet, and I hope we've done our part to make that happen.

S. E. Hinton, Rumble Fish (1975)

Since teaching The Outsiders a few years ago, 

Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton

Originally published: 1975
Read: October 2025

I've been working my way through the remainder of S. E. Hinton's works in her YA shared universe. Rumble Fish is the third of those, though in this case I'm not sure what its connections to the others actually are! I found this less effective than either Outsiders or That Was Then, This Is Now; it certainly has some strong scenes, particularly when Rusty-James and his friend go for a night on the town, and the imagery of the ending is captivating, but this one never quite clicked for me and I'm not sure I could tell you why exactly. Too repetitive? Just as TWTTIN did a similar thing to the previous book but sadder, so does Rumble Fish, going for an even more depressing ending. Yet, I don't know that that's explanation enough; plenty of authors circle around similar themes repeatedly and manage to make them compelling nonetheless. I think perhaps what hold the book back is Rusty-James's lack of self-knowledge; I don't think he ever really gets himself, which is different from Ponyboy or Byron. This certainly happens to real people (quite frequently!) but it does mean it's harder to immerse yourself in the narrative, I think.

Justice League International Year Eight, Part I: The Purification Plague (JLA #86-88 / JLI #58-64 / JLTF #10-12)

Here, the three Justice League ongoings get back into sync in order to lead into the Judgment Day crossover that spanned all three titles. (This is what my next post will cover.) JLTF #10-12, JLA #86-88, and JLI #63-64 all take place simultaneously as a series of natural disasters begins springing up around the world; I recommend reading them in that order, because a couple characters (T. O. Morrow and Desaad) cross between the titles, and that's the order the stories happen for them. All three of those story arcs end on a cliffhanger leading into JLA #89. Moreover, JLI #58-62 is a continuous story where its final issue also overlaps with JLA #86.

Because of this, even though they came out in 1994, I recommend reading the two Elseworlds annuals earlier, so as to not disrupt the continuous story that goes from JLI #58 up to Zero Hour.

from Justice League America Annual #8

"The Once and Future League" / "Attack of the 'O' Squad!!! or: What If They Staged an Invasion and Nobody Came?" / "No Rules to Follow", from Justice League America Annual #8 and Justice League International Annual vol. 2 #5 (1994)
written by Dan Vado and Gerard Jones; pencils by Norman Felchile, Evan Dorkin, and Kiki Chansamone; inks by John Stokes & Rich Rankin, Paul Guinan, and Rich Rankin, John Stokes, Frank Percy, & Don Hillsman; colors by Gene D'Angelo and Rick Taylor; letters by Kevin Cunningham, Gaspar Saladino, and Clem Robins

These two annuals present stories from alternate continuities: I think DC has done some great "Elseworlds" stories but my impression of the 1994 Elseworlds annuals I have read is that having every series do one all at once was probably stretching the concept too thin. These ones are... pretty okay. The JLA annual actually contains two; the first posits that during the early days of the Justice League, Felix Faust lured them into a trap and destroyed them all, allowing him to rule the world; the bulk of the story takes place a century later, where people finally begins rising up against Faust—including a new set of Justice Leaguers. I probably spent too much time thinking about the mechanics of this. At this point in DC continuity, Batman didn't work with the League in its early days, and Wonder Woman wasn't even around back then, so how could they have been killed by Faust? Similarly, why are a bunch of familiar characters (e.g., Jimmy Olsen, Ted Kord, Snapper Carr) around a whole century later? I mean, I know it's an alternate continuity, so these could all just be points of divergence, but the story goes to some pains to establish what its main point of divergence is, so it feels weird to add extra ones on top of that. Outside of that, it's an okay story; I feel like it's very similar to other Elseworlds or even "Legends of the Dead Earth" stories I've read. Who the new Leaguers are is barely explained, which definitely undermined it.

JLA Annual #8 also contains a humorous short where every supervillain with a name ending in "O" teams up: Amazo, Chemo, Sinestro, Starro, Kanjar Ro, Destro, and so on. They are not very good at cooperation. Meanwhile, the Justice League is trying to find something to watch on tv. It's not great stuff, but it is probably the single best Justice League story written by Dan Vado. I liked the last-page joke the best.

The JLI Annual is set in a world where superheroes didn't emerge until the 1990s, and people are reacting to them with fear and suspicion, especially Bruce Wayne, who has channeled his anguish over his parents' death into quashing crime via the Wayne Foundation. Wayne and the government attempt to crack down on these heroes, who fracture over what the best way to respond is. The lineup of the new heroes is mostly JLI characters (the Wally West Flash, Power Girl, Tasmanian Devil, Metamorpho, Fire) but with some random others ones thrown in (Beast Boy of the Titans, Poison Ivy), plus Booster and Blue Beetle appear as part of the group sent to stop the new heroes. (And also Ralph Dibny appears as a powerless writer who wonders if he might have been inspired to obtain powers if history had gone differently.) It's okay; there are too many characters, and the art is not great, but I did like the ending.

from Justice League International vol. 2 #61

"Nocturne" / "Ordinary People" / "Out of the Future" / "Born of Man and Woman" / "The Sacrifice", from Justice League International vol. 2 #58-62 (Nov. 1993–Mar. 1994)
written by Gerard Jones & Will Jacobs; pencilled by Ron Randall and Chuck Wojtiekiewicz; inked by Roy Richardson, Craig Gilmore, and Michael Oeming, Rich Rankin, & Don Hillsman; lettered by Clem Robins; colored by Gene D'Angelo

Here we have another set of totally mediocre JLI stories that jerk from concept to concept. I feel like Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs are struggling to both maintain threads they set up early on but also lean into the storytelling trends of the early 1990s, and pretty much failing at both as a result. Lots of time is given over to a really boring storyline about people from the future, but also there's this whole thing about the JLI waking up in a timeline where someone averted their heroic origins: Guy is Earth's only Green Lantern, Rex never got his powers, Kara was never woken up, and so on. I liked the bit about how Guy was a great guy in this timeline, but it's boring otherwise, and it feels like a diversion from the book's core premise. Rex gets a new "battle form"... like, why? So many dumb things in this run. 

You can also see them struggling to accommodate what's going on in other titles, specially Green Lantern, which previously the book was good at. For example, there's been no mention of the destruction of Coast City in JLI even though Hal is a lead here. In issue #61, Hal suddenly has his arm in a sling, which happened in the Coast City fight with Mongul, even though the opening scene of #61 directly continues from the closing scene of #60, where his arm is not in a sling. Certainly the destruction of Coast City didn't happen between those issues!

I found the notes from assistant editor Ruben Diaz in the letter column annoying. In issue #59, for example, he opines that other comics (I think he's dissing Marvel's X-Men line here) "have offered multiple crossovers, with big surprises, big changes, big star talent—big deal! Most of what they deliver is layers of convoluted storylines, inconsequential endings with little personal change in the characters, clichés, and less than 100% effort on the part of creators who step on each other's toes trying to outdo each other." But if that's so awful, then why do I feel like all the Justice League titles are just trying to imitate that storytelling style, instead of leaning into what they were actually good at? You can't diss the 1990s Marvel/Image style and copy it! There's another one (somewhere in the #53-57 range, I think) where Ruben apologizes for how bad the book has been since Breakdowns. Like, ouch! Why would I want to told as a reader that I've been getting substandard product? Why would you throw the writers and artists under bus like that?? And what if I liked some of that run???

from Justice League Task Force #11
(panels not contiguous in the original)

The Purification Plague, from Justice League Task Force #10-12 (Mar.-May 1994), reprinted in Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague (2018)
written by Michael Jan Friedman, pencilled by Sal Velluto, inked by Jeff Albrecht (with Robert Jones), lettered by Bob Pinaha, colored by Glenn Whitmore

In this final story from the first (and, I guess, only, given it's been eight years) JLTF trade, J'onn and Gypsy assemble a team to go undercover among white supremacists in rural Nebraska: they are joined by Black Canary, Elongated Man, the original Hourman, and Thunderbolt. I had actually read this story in single issues before, when I read through a bunch of uncollected stories featuring the original Birds of Prey lineup.

It's about as okay as every JLTF storyline. Nothing will rock your world here; it's depressing to see the evil Aryans using what reads like MAGA rhetoric. The ending is a bit pat. I found it weird that Ralph somehow didn't know Gypsy's codename didn't reflect her heritage given they served in the League together during the Detroit era. Like, surely someone would ask at some point?

from Justice League America #88

Cult of the Machine / "Rage against the Machine", from Justice League America #86-88 (Mar.-May 1994), reprinted in Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 (2017)
written by Dan Vado, pencils by Mark Campos, inks by Ken Branch & Kevin Conrad, letters by Clem Robins, colors by Gene D'Angelo

Oh God make it stop.

I really struggled with this one. Ice is mopey and emotional; Marc Campos's art is incapable of nuance, so everyone is shouting at each other all the time. Captain Atom is a stupid jarhead who gets into argument with an ineffectual Wonder Woman; he's nothing like the guy who lead the JLE back in their Paris days. The story is about some cultists who build a transmitter tower or something that somehow brings back Dreamslayer of the Extremists; the resulting story is as unappealing as every Extremists story. Wait, no, moreso. How all this hangs together is left as an exercise for the reader, because neither art nor story are doing the work. At one point you have to turn the book sideways to read a page; this strikes me as the kind of power move that only works if your art is good enough to justify the effort. Campos's is not.

Bad bad bad. I hated every page of it, every panel.

from Justice League International vol. 2 #64

"Visions of Death" / "Immortal Truth", from Justice League International vol. 2 #63-64 (Apr.-May 1994)
written by Gerard Jones (with Will Jacobs), pencilled by Chuck Wojtiekiewicz, inked by Bob Dvorak & Rich Rankin and Craig Gilmore, letters by Clem Robins, colors by Gene D'Angelo

As I said at the top of this post, these issues take place in parallel with the contemporary issues of JLTF and JLA. While the growing natural disasters are a background element in the other two series, it's the main focus of these issues, which have the JLI on the ground in India trying to deal with them; meanwhile, Doctor Light is dealing with the disembodied consciousness Erewhon with which she's somehow fallen in love. This latter plotline could be interesting, I think, but at this point makes this overstuffed book feel even more unfocused. At the same time these issues are trying to lead into Judgment Day, they're also trying to pay off the ongoing JLI plot (since issue #51) about ancient cults rising up; it turns out (I think) that whatever's causing the disasters is also empowering the Cadre of the Immortal, with representatives from a bunch of different ancient civilizations. The JLI has to go to Africa and fight Prester John, and meanwhile Power Girl is pregnant and her baby can magically generate forcefields, and Chandi has temporarily been turned evil.

It's all another uninteresting action-focused story that's pulled in ten different directions. I feel like Gerard Jones has lost control of this book and, more significantly, completely lost what made it appeal so much to me just thirteen issues ago. 

This is the fourteenth in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers issues #89-92 of JLA, #65-68 of JLI, and #13-16 of JLTF. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Justice League #1-6 / Justice League International #7-12 (May 1987–Apr. 1988)
2. Justice League International #13-21 (May 1988–Dec. 1988)
3. Justice League International #22-25 / Justice League America #26-30 / Justice League Europe #1-6 (Jan. 1989–Sept. 1989) 
4. Justice League America #31-36 / Justice League Europe #7-12 (Oct. 1989–Mar. 1990)
5. Justice League America #37 / Justice League Europe #13-21 (Apr. 1990–Dec. 1990)
6. Justice League America #38-50 / Justice League Europe #22 (May 1990–May 1991)
7. Justice League America #51-52 / Justice League Europe #23-28 (Feb. 1991–July 1991) 
8. Justice League America #53-60 / Justice League Europe #29-36 (Aug. 1991–Mar. 1992) 
9. Justice League America #61-65 / Justice League Europe #37-42 (Apr. 1992–Sept. 1992)
10. Justice League America #66-69 / Justice League Europe #43-50 (Sept. 1992–May 1993) 
11. Justice League America #70-77 / Justice League Task Force #1-3 (Jan. 1993–Aug. 1993) 
12. Justice League America #78-83 / Justice League International #51-52 / Justice League Task Force #4-8 (June 1993–Jan. 1994)
13. Justice League America #84-85 / Justice League International #53-57 / Justice League Task Force #9 (Aug. 1993–Feb. 1994)