The fourth year of Justice League International largely avoids significant crossovers, except for the two-issue Furballs one right at the beginning, and a small thread that goes from JLA to JLE right at the end, so for it I'll first do a post that covers most of the year's JLE issues with a single JLA issue, then a post that covers most of the year's JLA issues with a single JLE issue.
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| from Justice League America Annual #4 |
plot & breakdowns by Keith Giffen; scripts by J. M. DeMatteis; pencils by Mike McKone, Adam Hughes, and Chris Sprouse; inks by Bob Smith, Art Nichols (assists by Joe Rubinstein & Jack Torrance), and K. S. Wilson; letters by Bob Lappan and Albert De Guzman; colors by Gene D'Angelo
This sequence begins with JLA Annual #4, which very well may be the comic peak of JLI. In this issue, the Injustice League accidentally foils a robbery and ends up being branded heroes, so they decide to go legit and offer their services to Maxwell Lord. Much to everyone's consternation, Max decides to take them on—but makes them the JLI's Antarctic branch, where they can't cause any problems, and adds Gnort and the Scarlet Skier to the mix, to keep them out of trouble too. What results is hilarity, as the JLAnt soon comes under attack from the remnants of a mad scientist's experiment left in Antarctica, an army of penguins infused with killer piranha genes. I read this in bed while sick, and it cheered me up immensely; I was cackling over something on basically every page.
After this comes the two-part Furballs crossover, where a stray cat makes its way into the JLA embassy, defeating (among others) Guy Gardner; at the end, it escapes into the teleport tubes, making its way to the JLE embassy, where it causes still more issues... but ultimately ends up adopted by Power Girl. This is the kind of character-based irreverent comedy one comes to JLI for.
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| from DC Retroactive: Justice League America 1990s #1 |
plot & breakdowns by Keith Giffen, script by J. M. DeMatteis, art by Kevin Maguire, colors by Rosemary Cheetham, letters by Carlos M. Mangual
This is the last-ever JLI story by Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire, written as part of 2011's DC Retroactive event. I read it around this point, but it's chronologically unplacable. It must go before Furballs (JLA #37 and JLE #13) because Booster is still on the team, and he quits at the end of JLA #37, but it also must go after Furballs, because Power Girl has her cat. Also, at the time of JLA #37, Mister Miracle had been replaced by an android duplicate, but this is definitely the regular Mister Miracle. Additionally, it seems to precede JLA Annual #4, because its events set up the Injustice League becoming JLAnt... though in a totally different way to what we see in JLA Annual #4. I did toy with the idea that maybe it (along with JLA Annual #4) could happen during Furballs, but, no, that's not really possible.
I'm not mad about any of this; it was twenty years later, and the creative team's main objective was surely to provide an entertaining story with a classic line-up of characters and set-up, even if that set-up never quite existed at one moment in time. At that level, it succeeds perfectly: more comedy with the Injustice League is always worthwhile, everyone's reaction to Power Girl turning up with her cat is great. A great way for this great creative team to go out. (That said, it did bother me that in this story, Fire is skeptical about shopping and Ice loves it, the exact opposite of their characterizations in the original 1990s stories.)
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| from Justice League Europe #21 |
plot & breakdowns by Keith Giffen; scripts by J. M. DeMatteis and Gerard Jones; pencils by Linda Medley, Bart Sears, and Marshall Rogers; inks by Jose Marzan Jr., Pablo Marcos, Randy Elliott, Bob Smith, and Joe Rubinstein; letters by Albert De Guzman; colors by Gene D'Angelo
This run of JLE stories begins with an annual focused on a tussle with the Global Guardians, who are now operating out of Bialya, under (unbeknownst to most of them) the control of the Queen Bee); it also sees Gerard Jones take over as scripter of the title, a position he will continue in even once Keith Giffen departs as plotter. I liked the initial Global Guardians arc in JLE #1-6 (see item #3 below), but beyond that, it never quite works for me; I think fundamentally there are just too many Global Guardians, and I feel like every story with them piles on still more of them.
After this comes a fun story about the JLE (along with Fire and Ice) going to Cannes and encountering a guy whose power is to become real-life versions of movie characters; here, he almost accidentally becomes Godzilla. This leads, though, into probably the most serious JLE story of all, The Extemist Vector, where the Extremists, who destroyed the world the Silver Sorceress and Bluejay came from with nuclear weapons, make their way to the DC universe and attempt to do the same thing there. This is probably the low point of the JLE I've read so far (as the point I write this, I'm up to issue #31). It's not that I think JLI can't be serious, but the seriousness here seems largely independent of the characters; this story is five issues long but really tells us nothing about them as people. Compare the next JLA story after this (the one with Despero), which is also very serious, but manages to also have a lot of heart and character moments. Part of the problem is the Extremists themselves, who are harbingers of the worst sorts of 1990s "extreme" villains.
The next two issues bring some significant changes to the JLE; in #20, their Paris embassy is inadvertently destroyed, and in #21, they settle into the JLI's London location. I did not find #20 very funny, and it was quite obviously intended to be so; I do remember Gerard Jones doing some funny work later on in this title, but he hasn't really hit that here yet. I did enjoy the next issue more, which has some good bits like Captain Atom's sheer joy at learning he's been relieved of command of the JLE, and Power Girl's cat killing local dogs! I am a bit sad to lose the Paris setting, because it led to good cultural clash; thankfully, Giffen and Jones have the grumpy French police inspector who hates the JLE, Camus, dispatched to London along with them.
This is the fifth in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers issues #38-50 of JLA and #22 of JLE. Previous installments are listed below:
- Justice League #1-6 / Justice League International #7-12 (May 1987–Apr. 1988)
- Justice League International #13-21 (May 1988–Dec. 1988)
- Justice League International #22-25 / Justice League America #26-30 / Justice League Europe #1-6 (Jan. 1989–Sept. 1989)
- Justice League America #31-36 / Justice League Europe #7-12 (Oct. 1989–Mar. 1990)
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