I wouldn't have gotten into Justice League Europe if Bob Greenberger hadn't lost his job.
Back in the mid-2000s, I was in college and just getting into comic books; my main entry point was Star Trek and Star Wars, seeking stories I'd read about, but were not contained in the novels I'd been reading since childhood. At that time, Bob got fired from DC Comics and needed to raise money, fast, so he auctioned off his comics collection. I bid on a lot of stuff, mostly Star Trek (this is where my runs on Starfleet Academy and Early Voyages come from), but other stuff I'd heard of, too, like Green Lantern/Green Arrow (the 1980s prestige format reprints). In particular, there were two series I picked up just because the basic premises tickled my fancy: Alpha Flight and Justice League Europe. Canada's premiere superhero team! The Justice League... but in Europe! Something about the very American concept of superheroes being transposed into other countries very much amused and intrigued me.
I can't claim to be a big Alpha Flight fan (that will have to be another post someday), but I fell in love with Justice League Europe. Character-driven and funny, it's everything I want from an ongoing narrative, and it's thanks to JLE that Elongated Man is my favorite DC superhero.
I hadn't known when buying it that JLE was a spin-off of Justice League International, or that it was intertwined with Justice League America, but I soon figured that out when I got to crossover events like The Teasdale Imperative and Breakdowns, which were largely incomprehensible because I was only getting half the story; even outside of that, this series clearly continued character threads begun in the earlier series. Additionally, JLE continued beyond what I had, just under another title: issues #51-68 were retitled Justice League International.
So I've long intended to read the whole of the JLI era, with both series intertwined and all the various side stories and spin-offs. To that end, about ten years ago I picked up Formerly Known as the Justice League, which collects the six-issue reunion miniseries of that name.
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| The setup... from Justice League vol. 1 #2 |
I'll also be reading Justice League Task Force (which has been collected a little), Justice League Quarterly (early issues of which are in the JLI Omnibus volumes), and various other side stories and flashbacks set during this era. I won't end where the omnibuses end, but keep going, up until the point that JLI was cancelled, just before Zero Hour. (JLA kept going after that, but I won't.) Some of the post-Giffen/DeMatteis material has been collected, mostly issues of JLA in the Superman & Justice League America and Wonder Woman & Justice League America trades; I'll read single issues when I have no other option.
I'm mostly reading in the order things are collected in the JLI omnibus volumes, but I've made some adjustments based on the Cosmic Teams timeline. Here on this blog, I'll be writing them up in chunks of approximately twelve ongoing issues to a post. So, when it's just JLI, I'll cover a year's worth of stuff, but once JLE is added to the mix, I'll do two posts per year, and then once JLTF comes along, three.
So here's the first post. This covers issues #1-12 of the title originally known as Justice League, later Justice League International, plus the Justice League Annual, and two stories set during this era that were published later.
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| ...and the payoff. from Justice League vol. 1 #2 |
Like many ongoing titles, Justice League takes a bit to find its footing. I'm not saying it's bad—I'm just saying it's not what it would later become. The first four issues especially are pretty serious in terms of plot, with terrorists attacking the UN, looming nuclear meltdowns in Soviet Russia, people escaping dead worlds, and a fairly desperate fight between Booster Gold and the Royal Flush Gang. The comedy, such as it is, mostly comes from two things.
First, Keith Giffen's breakdowns, J. M. DeMatteis's scripts, and Kevin Maguire's pencils lean into the character interplay and highlight the differences between these various characters. To me, this is always the pleasure of a team book: the premises of, say, Batman and Booster Gold, make for fairly different approaches to superheroics, and it's just fun to have them butt up against each other here. In particular, Batman kind of becomes the cranky straight man to the other characters, as one of the only experienced JL members, and certainly the most serious... though not averse to cracking a joke on occasion. The other character who really stands out here is Guy Gardner, who's full-on in his boorish asshole characterization here. Captain Marvel is in his "holey moley" mode, which is fun too.
Second, as much as they put people in danger, there is a slight hint of comedy to the machinations of the League's mysterious benefactor, Maxwell Lord. Obviously being toyed with by forces beyond your comprehension can be frightening, but it can also be the set-up for some good jokes. So, the the first four issues are decent enough. The visual storytelling is top-notch, as it always is when Giffen is doing breakdowns or layouts.
These are followed by Justice League Annual #1, which I thought was okay but a bit long-winded. Some of Ted "Blue Beetle" Kord's employees are infected by a mind-controlling virus, which spreads around the world; it's not really interesting enough to see a bunch of mind-controlled superheroes to justify the double-length story. And, unfortunately, the next story (the "Gray Man" one from JL #5-6) is also about mind-controlled superheroes. This is probably the weakest story in the whole book; I found the conflict about an ancient servant of the Lords of Order who rises up to bedevil Doctor Fate kind of long-winded and hard to care about. That said, JL #5 is the issue with the infamous "one punch" moment where Batman lays out Guy once and for all.
After this, the book was retitled from Justice League to Justice League International with issue #7; as you might imagine from the new title, this is also the story where the JL officially gets UN sanction. The Gray Man plot is wrapped up quickly, and the issue focuses on Lord manipulating the League and the press... but we also get some of the series's initial forays into more overt comedy, with Guy getting the bump on the head that turns him into an obnoxiously pleasant sap. On the other hand, there are nice moments of characterization, too, such as when J'onn "Martian Manhunter" J'onnz reflects on how the League itself is his home on Earth, the one place where he can be himself.
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| from JLA 80-Page Giant #1 |
This story was written a decade later, but takes place during JLI #7. Its first page retells the first page of issue #7, with Guy crawling under a console in the JL headquarters looking for a mouse and hitting his head. The rest of the short story involves the rest of the League, particularly Beetle and Booster, working to try to catch the mouse. (The issue implies the rest of its events follow immediately after the first page, but this can't be the case; most of the story's events must occur simultaneous to the events of pages 14 through 17 of JLI #7 based on the presence of the Martian Manhunter. A couple days pass according to "Mousebusters," which isn't what JLI #7 implies, but is possible.)
Anyway, it's a very short but funny story about some Booster/Beetle hijinks. At the time I read it, I felt it was more overtly comedic than anything we'd seen in the actual JL comics so far, but it's actually pretty much on the level of "Moving Day," the very next issue.
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| from Justice League International vol. 1 #8 |
The rest of the first year of JLI sets up the series's new status quo, involves the characters in the Millennium crossover, and wraps up the subplot about Maxwell Lord manipulating the League while something else manipulates Maxwell Lord. Issue #8, "Moving Day," is comics perfection as far as I'm concerned. No superheroics, just character interplay as the JLI moves into their new UN-provided "embassies" around the world. Lots of great jokes, like Booster trying to hit on women and Mister Miracle not realizing that every superhero headquarters has a roof up to landing a shuttle on it.
"Seeing Red" and "Soul of the Machine" focus on battling the Manhunters; part of the premise of Millennium is that characters from every book would be revealed as evil alien Manhunters, but unfortunately the character picked here is Rocket Red, who literally joined the team one issue earlier, so it's not much of a shock reveal! In "Soul of the Machine," the League is suddenly in space (I did read Millennium, but over a decade ago, so my memory is foggy); I was surprised to actually enjoy the appearance of Gnort, the nepo baby Green Lantern. In the past, I have found the a little bit of the character to be far too much, but I guess it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire would handle him better than their many imitators.
To be honest, I found a lot of the reveals about Maxwell Lord pretty confusing, but I did kind of feel like the creative team was trying to wrap up this plot sooner rather than later so it wouldn't drag on too long.
There are also some backup stories here; in particular, we see the UN shutting down the Global Guardians, which had been their sanctioned superhero team before the JLI (as established in Infinity, Inc.)... but which never had America or Russia as participants. These stories are okay on their own but will end up having several different ramifications for the main series.
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| from Justice League America Annual #9 |
written by Gerard Jones, pencilled by Jeff Parker, inked by John Nyberg, lettered by Clem Robins, colored by Gene D'Angelo
Lastly, I read this "Year One" annual from 1995. Unlike "Mousebusters," it's not collected in any of the JLI omnibuses (they seem to have only gone for retroactive-continuity JLI stories when they were created by members of the original creative team), so I had to hunt down the single issue. 1995's "Year One" annuals were all set (as you might imagine) during the first year of their characters' superheroic careers; this one actually takes place between pages of JLI #12.
Basically, it further complicates the already complicated story about Maxwell Lord and Metron by having Metron accidentally boom tube the JLI to New Genesis, where they have to stop the machine intelligence that was controlling Max (here called "Kilg%re," though that hasn't been established in the actual JLI stories yet) from exerting its control over New Genesis and Apokolips. In Earth time, the whole trip takes just thirty seconds, between panels of JLI #12, hence the title... though much of the story retells the Max-focused scenes from JLI #12 over again, which must take more than thirty seconds. I found the retelling pretty unnecessary (though writer Gerard Jones adds some wrinkles which I think must be setting up some ongoing plot from 1995), and I honestly didn't really understand a lot of the turns in the New Genesis/Apokolips plot.
I usually enjoy Jeff Parker's writing, but I think this is my first time seeing his art, which I think is overall good, but what I am discovering about many of the people trying to imitate the JLI style is that they go for "comedic" in the art itself, which is something Kevin Maguire himself doesn't do. He just goes for character-focused and realistic, and lets the comedy emerge naturally from that.
This is the first in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers issues #13-21 of JLI.
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