02 December 2025

Justice League International Year Five, Part II: Breakdowns (JLA #53-60 / JLE #29-36)

Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis wrapped up their five-year run on Justice League International with a massive fifteen-part crossover called Breakdowns; JLE scripter Gerard Jones would continue on that title without Giffen, but JLA would receive a wholly new creative team.

As I've said before, I read JLE in college, but I did not read its sister title, and most of the time that was fine... but it did leave this storyline totally incoherent. So, twenty years later, I was quite looking forward to finally understanding what was going on here!

Overall, these issues are sequenced perfectly in the omnibus, except that JLA Annual #5 obviously goes before JLA #53, but is placed after it. I appreciate that the omnibus includes both Green Lantern #18, a Breakdowns tie-in, and JLE #36, which Giffen didn't work on, presumably because it's branded as "Part 16 of 15" of Breakdowns. Subsequent issues of JLE by Jones will presumably never be collected, but we'll get to that in my next post, I suspect.

from Justice League America #54
"Tomorrow's League Today!" / Breakdowns, Parts 1-5 / "An Old Beginning" / "Too Much Time" / Breakdowns, Parts 6-7 / "One Angry Guy" / Breakdowns, Parts 8-16, from Justice League America Annual #5 (1991), Justice League America #53-55 & Justice League Europe #29-30 (Aug.-Oct. 1991), Justice League Quarterly #5 (Winter 1991), Justice League Europe Annual #2 (1991), Justice League Europe #31 & Justice League America #56 (Oct.-Nov. 1991), Green Lantern vol. 3 #18 (Nov. 1991), and Justice League Europe #32-36 & Justice League America #57-60 (Nov. 1991–Mar. 1992); reprinted in Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 3 (2024)
plots and breakdowns by Keith Giffen; scripts by J. M. DeMatteis, Gerard Jones, and Kevin Dooley; pencils by Steve Carr (with Chris Sprouse, Marshall Rogers, Dan Jurgens, Joe Phillips, Ty Templeton, Linda Medley, Russel Braun, Keith Giffen, John Beatty, Randy Elliott, and Curt Swan), Chris Wozniak, Darick Robertson, Andy Smith, Joe Staton, Bart Sears, and Kevin Maguire; inks by Jose Marzan Jr., Bruce Patterson, John Beatty, Bob Smith, Carlos Garzon, Randy Elliott (with Michael Golden), Art Nichols, Romeo Tanghal, Terry Austin, and Robert Campanella; letters by Bob Lappan, Willie Schubert, Tim Harkins, Michael Heisler, and Albert De Guzman; colors by Gene D'Angelo, Tom McCraw, and Matt Hollingsworth

Breakdowns is a complicated story, and this ultimately proves to be its downfall, I think. The inciting incident is that Maxwell Lord gets shot, and then the UN replaces him as the head of the JLI; this ultimately turns out to be a plot by the "Queen Bee" of Bialya. Max getting shot is great, in that the early issues here have a lot of good character focus as a result; the JLA argues about what to do for this man to whom they owe so much, and even the Injustice League gets involved, but in a good way. But I felt like this was wrapped up fairly abruptly; the whole conspiracy thing seemed over before it even began. (I do wonder if plans were derailed by the fact that Captain Atom dies between parts 5 and 6, thanks to the events of the Armageddon 2001 crossover; his beef with Bialya played a big role in some of the earlier installments.)

from Justice League America #56
At the same time all this is playing out, Despero escapes Lord Manga Khan's custody (see item #6 in the list below) and Dreamslayer of the Extremists (see #5) occupies Maxwell Lord's vacant mind and uses his mental powers to take over Kooeykooeykooey. I see what Giffen and DeMatteis were going for—you have two of the biggest threats to the JLI return at its lowest point—but in practice I felt like we ended up with a story that wasn't really a unified whole, but rather lurched from point to point. A lot of the individual parts are great—I particularly liked the battle with Despero and the way it was resolved—but it doesn't feel like a story so much as a bunch of things happening. This is probably at its worst where there's a whole issue that goes nowhere about the JLI finding weird stuff in the original JLA's cave headquarters, which has been borrowed by the Doom Patrol.

It also doesn't help that it feels like the JLI breaks up and reforms like three times in fifteen parts. How many times can these people realize that despite their bickering they do all belong together? (Or there's this weird bit where the UN assigns Doctor Light and the Tasmasian Devil to join the League... and they're out like two issues later, having never done anything.) However, some of those moments work well; I loved Guy Gardner and General Glory becoming roommates and Guy getting mad because General Glory runs a soup kitchen out of their apartment! It's good to see some focus on Guy as a serious human being in GL #18, too.

from Justice League America #60
Still, the story does have its high points. There's good character moments throughout, but particularly (as I said) in the battle with Despero and in part 15, where the League regroups after the intense events of the previous fourteen issues. The final scene between J'onn and Max was genuinely moving stuff; I've come to love these guys. I know they both persist as League members in future books, but I will miss these particular versions of them nonetheless.

Weirdly, part 15 ends with the League resolving to go on and then part 16 has them disbanding, with a lot of beats that directly contradict what just happened in part 15! It's very clearly just there so that the League can triumphantly come back together in the Justice League Spectacular (see my next post) but surely it could have been handled better given Gerard Jones scripted half the installments of Breakdowns, entirely wrote part 16, and cowrote JL Spectacular!

from Justice League America Annual #5
Of the other three stories here, two are Armageddon 2001 tie-ins. This was a 1991 crossover where a guy named Waverider came from the year 2001, seeking the hero who would become the tyrant "Monarch" in his era. He had the power to touch people and see ten years into their future, which let every story tell a story about what its characters would be up to in the future. The JLA and JLE ones are both cleverly put together, giving us a series of quick glimpses of each teammember, which the reader assembles to get a complete picture. In the JLE one, Waverider is confused because he keeps glimpsing each hero in the past, but in the end, you figure out how it all came to pass. This one is mostly goofy: Rocket Red becomes an Arthurian knight, Power Girl becomes General Glory's sidekick during World War II, Elongated Man eclipses Sherlock Holmes as the greatest sleuth of Victorian London, and so on. (There is a Mrs. Miniver reference in the Power Girl story, which was not something I expected!) 

The JLA one is proper great, though; the JLA isn't together anymore in the future, but across the course of the different glimpses, you see how much these people all meant to each other amidst all the jokes. I particularly like the moment where Ice gets Guy to admit his "nice" and "mean" selves are really just the same guy. But also some great jokes, like when Mr. Miracle decides to break Blue Beetle out of prison.

Lastly, there's a Global Guardians story here, about what they do after liberated from Bialya. Despite having to squeeze a dozen-member superhero team into a small number of pages, it has them teaming up with a second dozen-member superhero team. This is... not the way to get me to ever care about these guys. 

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