Justice League International Year Seven, Part II: The Trouble with Guys (JLA #78-83 / JLI #51-52 / JLTF #4-8)

As I said in my previous post (see below), we're now in an era where the Justice League line of titles is juggling three ongoing monthly titles. My write-ups here are not aiming for strict chronology, but rather rotating through the series in a way that makes for the smoothest reading experience. It isn't totally possible to avoid any hiccups, though; for example, Hal Jordan turns up in JLA #83, a story that must take place before Bloodlines, with his arm in a sling, indicating that the story follows the destruction of Coast City in The Return of Superman. But Hal doesn't have his arm in a sling in any JLI stories until issue #61, which definitely takes place after Bloodlines. None of his JLI stories even mention the destruction of Coast City! 

Anyway, I've done my best to balance things out; I doubt, for example, that all five of the below JLTF  issues take place exactly where I've placed them, but you can read them there with no problems as JLTF doesn't intersect with either JLA or JLI until issue #9.

from Justice League International vol. 2 #51

"The New World" / "All Is Maya", from Justice League International vol. 2 #51-52 (June-July 1993)
written by Gerard Jones & Will Jacobs, pencilled by Ron Randall, inked by Randy Elliott, lettered by Willie Schubert, colored by Gene D'Angelo

Following the events of JLE #50 (see item #10 in the list below), the Justice League's London branch is now Justice League International, and as a result, is on an international goodwill tour; these two issues take the team to Mexico and India. We also have a slightly adjusted lineup, with Aquaman gone, but Tasmanian Devil and new hero Chandi joining the team. Each is a done-in-one story hinting at a larger plotline. I don't think these two stories are quite as good as the Jones/Randall/Elliott run on JLE #37-50, but they're decent enough. Jones has a good grasp on the characters (especially Ralph and Sue, though I'm not really sure where the Kara-is-pregnant plotline was intended to go), and he's always trying to do something more interesting than a generic superhero punchup.

from Justice League Task Force #8

"The Arsenal of Souls" / Knightquest: The Search / "Valley of the Daals!" / "How Green Was My Daalie?", from Justice League Task Force #4-8 (Sept. 1993–Jan. 1994), reprinted in Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague (2018)
written by Chuck Dixon, Dennis O'Neil, and Peter David; pencilled by Gabriel Morrissette and Sal Velluto; inked by Dick Giordano and Jeff Albrecht (with Aaron McClellan); colored by Glenn Whitmore; lettered by Albert De Guzman, Clem Robins, and Bob Pinaha

Here we have three stories: a one-parter and two two-parters. Each of the stories has a different writer; all five of the issues but the first is drawn by Sal Velluto and Jeff Albrecht. The first is a Gypsy spotlight putting her up against regular Batman villain Lady Shiva, written by Chuck Dixon, regular Batman writer. I do like Lady Shiva, and in theory it's nice to get something focused on Shiva, but I didn't find the story very memorable.

Batman tie-ins continue to dominate the series with the next two issues, which are part of the Batman event Knightquest: The Search; Bruce Wayne (during the era where his back is broken and Azrael is Batman) asks the JLTF to help find Tim Drake's dad and Dr. Leslie Thompkins on the Caribbean island of Santa Prisca. (So many Caribbean islands in this era of Justice League comics.) For this mission, J'onn and Gypsy are joined by the Green Arrow (in his Mike Grell phase) and the Bronze Tiger (a character I do not remember ever encountering before or even hearing about). There's a lot of running around; I didn't find it very interesting, and of course it ultimately doesn't even go anywhere because a key plot point from a Batman event isn't going to be resolved in a second-tier Justice League tie-in.

Lastly, there's a two-part story by Peter David about the Justice League Task Force being sent into a hidden matriarchal society to retrieve a crashed UN operative. Only women can enter this society, meaning the team consists of Gypsy, Wonder Woman, Maxima, Dolphin, Vixen... and J'onn!? Because, of course, the Martian Manhunter can shapeshift into a female form. I read a lot of Peter David Star Trek when I was in high school and usually found it funny; I haven't reread any of that work recently, so I don't know if it this just isn't as funny, or if my tastes have changed, or it what worked in the 1990s does not work in the 2020s. I'd like to think there could be a funny story in the Martian Manhunter becoming a woman and this not being a big deal. Why should American constructions of gender matter to an immortal shapeshifting Martian alien? Or, even, a funny story in the fact that they somehow do? But what we get here is just hyuk hyuk hyuk lesbians. I mostly did not enjoy this, and it definitely verges into trans panic vibes at points. I'm not sure Sal Velluto is the right artist to pair with Peter David even on one of PAD's good days, in any case. 

The bit about Paradise Island was funny, though.

One thing in general about Justice League Task Force that bugs me is that Sal Velluto likes two-page spreads too much. This is definitely a "him" thing, not a writing thing, because it's consistent across the series's myriad writers. They're not the kind with one big image across two pages, but a full set of dozen panels like you might normally see on two pages, except instead of reading left-to-right-and-down across the lefthand page and then the right, you have to read left-to-right across the page gutter. Almost every time I initially read the lefthand page on its own, struggled with how incoherent it seemed, and then belatedly realized the righthand page should have been part of my sequence. Velluto isn't that great about clearly breaking the central panel in the first row in such a way that your eye follows it across so you know how to read the whole spread. (Admittedly, it must be tricky to do! I remember Lee Sullivan discussing how to do it in the commentary essay for the comic strip for Doctor Who Magazine #598.)

from Justice League America #81

"Lives in the Balance" / "Extreme Measures" / "Running from Justice" / "Do the Right Thing" / "Guilty as Sin" / The Trouble with Guys, from Justice League America #78-82 (Early Aug.-Nov. 1993) and Justice League America #83 & Guy Gardner #15 (Dec. 1993), reprinted in Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 (2017)
written by Dan Vado and Chuck Dixon; pencils by Mike Collins, Kevin West, and Chris Hunter; finished art by Carlos Garzón & Romeo Tanghal, Rick Burchett, and Terry Beatty; letters by Willie Schubert, Tim Harkins, and Albert De Guzman; colors by Gene D'Angelo, Gina Going, and Anthony Tollin

Lastly, we have a pretty continuous run of stories from Justice League America. Issues #78 and 79 make a two-part story, then issues #80 through 83 make another story that's finished in an issue of Guy Gardner (and then, actually issues #84-85 make another two-part story that picks up right from Guy Gardner #15, but I'll cover that next time). All of the JLA issues are written by Dan Vado, who succeeded Dan Jurgens as writer; Mike Collins pencils the initial two-parter, and then Kevin West becomes the regular penciller. (Chuck Dixon writes the GG issue.)

Like Justice League Task Force, this run of JLA dials up the "character conflict" by having everyone constantly snarl at each other; on top of this, like JLTF, there's a lot of hamhandedly boring stuff about interventionist geopolitics. And then some new Extremists debuted. I found the Extremists of the weaker parts of the original Giffen/DeMatteis run, so the last thing they need is to be reinvented for the "extreme" 1990s. And also Jay Garrick there for some reason? Not even the usually reliable Mike Collins can save this.

All of these tendencies get even worse in the long story about alien refugees crash-landing on the Earth. The U.S government (we get a Bill Clinton appearance! Regan appeared a couple times in the late 1980s stories, but I feel like we totally skipped over Bush I) wants them handed over to another group of aliens, but Wonder Woman doesn't want to do that, so Captain Atom (who is back from the dead for reasons no one ever gives) is sent in to fight the JLA. Again, the characterization is about as subtle as being hit with a brick, and I don't get why Wonder Woman is constantly being shown up and/or undermined as team leader. I would say this is all the worst tendencies of 1990s comics, except I've already read volume 2, and I know it goes downhill even more.

The crossover with Guy Gardner at the end spins out of an incident in JLA #82, where Guy—who has been acting increasingly deranged—kills someone. We eventually find out he's been replaced by an alien clone, and the real Guy turns up to defeat him. Guy is slowly descending into his insufferable period here; I can't stand it. I did appreciate finding out where the Guy clone in Birds of Prey originated.

Other than quietly forgetting um... those two guys Jurgens added to the team, you know who I mean, Vado keeps the same line-up, and even gets Fire and Booster back into action. I guess I appreciate that intellectually, but they don't really do much that I enjoyed. Booster in particular is now wearing a particularly 1990s Imagetastic ugly suit of armor.

Anyway, uh, this is a great era for the Justice League. 

This is the twelfth in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers issues #84-85 of JLA, #53-57 of JLI, and #9 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) 

Star Wars: No Prisoners by Karen Traviss

Even though I am not a big fan of the Star Wars prequel movies, I like the milieu they conjured and was (back in the day) overall pretty diligent about collecting tie-ins from the old "Expanded Universe" set during the movies. This included comic tie-ins to The Clone Wars tv show—a show I never really watched! I did watch some episodes of the first season about a decade ago, but I didn't get very far. But recently, the comics rose to the top of my reading list, and I decided to do everything I had left: not just the comics, but all the tie-in novels too. I did read two of those back when I attempted to watch the show, but there were three more I'd never gotten around to.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: No Prisoners
by Karen Traviss

Originally published: 2009
Acquired and read: November 2025

So the first installment on my Clone Wars journey is No Prisoners, a novel by Karen Traviss. There never were any more of these novels than the original batch of five, and looking at the book, I kind of feel like they didn't totally know how to handle them. While Dark Horse's comics are clearly aimed at the same child/YA audience as the show, this book seems to be avoiding any overt indication that it ties into a kids' tv show: there are clones in armor on the front cover, battledroids on the back, so we see no sign of the show's distorted, stylized art style, nor even a familiar character rendered in CG. Neither the front nor back overtly mention that this ties into a tv show. The focus of the book is clearly one aimed at old-school EU fans, not people watching the show: aside from Anakain and Ahsoka, the focal characters are Captain Pellaeon, an EU stalwart going back to the Thrawn trilogy, and Callista, a Jedi whose previous appearances were largely in a set of not-very-well-remembered 1990s novels. In fact, part of the purpose of the novel is clearly to explain inconsistencies between how the Jedi were depicted in those 1990s novels and how George Lucas wrote them when he made the prequels.

That makes, to be honest, a bit of an odd duck. It's not surprising to me there were no more books after this initial batch of five, because I'm not sure there was much of an audience for what they were doing. Who wanted something that tied into a kids' tv show but also told adult-focused stories dredging up bits of 1990s EU continuity?

Well, there is at least one person who wanted this: me. I mean, I didn't watch the show, so I don't care how much the book matches the feel of the show, I just care how much it entertains me. 

And Traviss, though I have very mixed thoughts about some of the books she wrote, was clearly one of the best writers of the old EU, with a strong grasp of characters and a clear ability to bring together complexity and themes. In this book, three things collide: Anakin's conflict over his ongoing relationship with Padmé (a violation of his Jedi vows), Pellaeon needing to go on a rescue mission for a Republic spy who turns to be his lover, and the appearance of the renegade sect of Jedi that Callista belongs to, ones who believe attachment is not the path to the Dark Side. The book is all about how we make life-and-death choices when our loved ones are on the line, who is ready to commit acts of violence and who is not, from the opening about Republic spy Hallena Devis to the pitched final battle to Captain Rex having to train a new complement of clones. The action is quick, the characters are well drawn, the themes are interesting. Traviss explaining the inconsistencies about Callista's group of Jedi could have felt like gratuitous retcons, but here it's fertile ground for showcasing Anakin's conflict between duty and desire.

I don't know that it's a great book, but it's a very good one, and it's hard for me to imagine there's a better tie-in novel to the new Clone Wars tv show out there. I wish I'd read it before, actually, because it actually seems to fit fairly well into Traviss's Republic Commando sequence, as a couple of its characters reappear in its last couple installments, Order 66 and 501st, and I imagine it reads better in that sequence than among the tv episodes it supposedly slots in between!

The Uncollected Internet Doctor Who Short Trips, 2004–21

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about all the short Doctor Who stories with Christmas themes that had never received some kind of hard-copy publication. In the process of researching it, I had to also figure out all the Internet-published short Doctor Who stories that were not Christmas-themed. Just as I read all the Christmas-themed ones as a sort of "book" in 2022, for Christmas 2025, I read all the other ones. Once again, here is a handy guide to all of them, along with my thoughts. (Note there were a bunch of short stories published on the official site during lockdown in 2020, but those were all subsequently collected.)

Adventure Calendar

As covered in my previous post, the official Doctor Who web site used to run an annual "adventure calendar" that often included short stories. Some were Christmas-themed, but some were not. Here are the ones that were not:

• "Number 1, Gallows Gate Road" by Rupert Laight (4 & 11 Dec. 2008). The tenth Doctor lands at a boarding house in 1940 where everyone—including himself—is curiously lacking in ambition. Published in two parts, I found the first pretty strong and atmospheric. Like a lot of Doctor Who stories, the second part, where you have to give explanations and solutions, is less engaging, but still I enjoyed it.
• "Houdini and the Space Cuckoos" Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four by Joseph Lidster (15-16, 19, & 25 Dec. 2012). In this story, the eleventh Doctor must team up with Harry Houdini to stop some aliens. I usually get on with Joseph Lidster's work very well, but this is more action-focused and less character-focused than plays to his strengths, I think. I did think he did a good job of capturing the voice of the eleventh Doctor.
• "Doctor Who and the Horror of Coal Hill" by Gavin Collinson (21 Dec. 2017). This is a bit longer than some of the other ones, and I found it surprisingly engaging. The main story is about the first Doctor visiting Coal Hill School during the time Susan is a student there, and helping a teacher fight off an alien menace; the story periodically jumps ahead and shows later Doctors coming back to the school later on to remember the events of the story. It's a neat story that parallels the Doctor's status as an outside with the perils of immigration. I thought Collinson's Christmas stories were a bit slight, but this one is strong.

Other Stories from the Official Site

• "The Feast of the Stone" by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright (3 Apr. 2004). This is the only story in this post to predate the 2005 revival, back when the official Doctor Who site was a subsection of "BBC Cult." (It is amazing to me that twenty years on, it's still there, though!) This is the only other story to ever feature the Doctor and his companions from the webcast Scream of the Shalka; it was part of a BBC Cult vampire-themed initiative. It's decent enough, but I very much enjoyed the glimpses of this unique Doctor with his unique companions, particularly the robotic shell of the Master. Scott & Wright to a good job capturing the voices of both Richard E. Grant's Doctor and Derek Jacobi's pseudo-Master.
• "'42' Prologue" by Joseph Lidster (12 May 2007). You may remember the 2007 episode "42," about the tenth Doctor and Martha, told in real time aboard a dying spaceship. This story chronicles the four minutes before they showed up, from the perspective of one of the characters on the ship. It doesn't particularly work on its own (it would be interesting to read it and then immediately start the episode, I think), but it's Joseph Lidster, so it has a strong sense of voice and character.
• "The Lonely Computer" by Rupert Laight (24 May 2008). The David Tennant years were really the peak of content on the official site; this story is based on a passing reference to the Doctor having met a lonely computer in Belgium in "The Unicorn and the Wasp." It's a little underdeveloped but Laight does well by both the tenth Doctor and Donna.
• "Blue Moon" by Oli Smith (July 2009). For the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo missions, the BBC site released this story about the Doctor discovering secret alien intervention in the moon landing—a premise the show would use itself just a couple years later. I thought this one was just okay, not much to say about it.
• "The War of Art" by Paul Cornell (Aug. 2010). I forget what the occasion for this one was, but I feel like it did have one, like it was a tie-in to a game or something. Paul Cornell is one of my favorite writers (not just Doctor Who writers, but writers full top) and he can do good, beautiful character work—but as this story shows, he can also be quite funny. Aliens invade a futuristic gallery, and Cornell uses this as the opportunity for a number of art jokes; I laughed out loud repeatedly.
• "The Night after Hallowe'en" by Mark B. Oliver (29 Oct.–5 Nov. 2010). This is the first of several stories by Mark B. Oliver about a family of kids the eleventh Doctor keeps meeting; they also appeared in a couple Christmas stories. I find the kids pretty generic, as is the plot here. I don't feel like they warranted repeat appearances.
• "What the TARDIS Thought of 'Time Lord Victorious'" by James Goss (15 Nov. 2020). This is one of two online prose tie-ins to the "Time Lord Victorious" event; it is told from the perspective of the TARDIS, picking up from the end of "The Waters of Mars," establishing how the tenth Doctor gets from there to the events of the crossover. It's fine. Goss always writes with a strong sense of voice, but the basic premise of the crossover was a bit silly.

Stories from Other Sources

• "My Dad, The Doctor" by Jamie Mathieson (First News, 29 Oct. 2015). Mathieson, writer of several Peter Capaldi tv stories, writes this prose story about him, one where the Doctor uses his sonic sunglasses to take over the mind of a kid's dad in the middle of a crisis. Well written but I found the final twist didn't make a ton of sense. It was written for a kids newspaper, but Mathieson republished it on his own blog.
• "The Dawn of the Kotturuh" by James Goss (official newsletter, 25 Sept. 2020). This is another tie-in to Time Lord Victorious, one explaining how the alien Kotturuh brought death to the universe during the Dark Times. It was originally published in the official Doctor Who e-mail newsletter. Frankly, even by the standards of Doctor Who, I don't think the idea of a universe with living things without death makes any sense, and this story didn't make it work any better.
• "The Voice of Many Angels" by Gavin Collinson (Maze Theory’s Into the Unknown web site, 18 Mar. 2021). My understanding is that the videogame Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins had a tie-in website called Into the Unknown, purporting to be a conspiracy theorist blog focused on the Weeping Angels. This was the final post on the site, a short story from the perspective of the guy who ran the site. The site and the story are gone now, but author Gavin Collinson was kind enough to share a copy of it with me via e-mail. I really enjoyed it; creepy and suggestive, and it expanded on Weeping Angels lore in interesting ways that I liked. Amazing to think there are new angles on them, but I loved the idea of a support group!

Since the time span covered in this post, there have been a least a couple more, tie-ins to another crossover event ("Doom's Day") but I haven't read those yet. These thirteen stories run over 250 pages if formatted like an official BBC Books anthology, so it makes for a nice set of readings. I wonder if any official publisher will ever be motivated to collect any of this work?

Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock

Beginning in 2010, BBC Books has published a series of "prestige" Doctor Who hardcovers, with different "big name" authors of various sorts, mostly a mix of authors with legit reps outside of Doctor Who (e.g., Stephen Baxter, Jenny Colgan), "celebrities" within the Doctor Who world (e.g., Tom Baker, Sophie Aldred), and people imitating the voice of Douglas Adams. I have previously read just one of them, a 2011 Christmas book, The Silent Stars Go by by Dan Abnett.

Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles; Or, Pirates of the Second Aether!!
by Michael Moorcock

Published: 2010
Acquired: September 2012
Read: October 2025

The very first of those, which I have had for a long time but never read, was The Coming of the Terraphiles, by Michael Moorcock. Moorcock is one of those authors I know of but have read very little of, just a couple short stories; the universe of print sf is so large and one only has so much time! Apparently this book's "Second Aether" is a milieu he has developed in his original fiction, and some of its characters and concepts span his wider multiverse.

As an experiment, I think it's a worthy one. BBC Books's tie-ins to the new series can be easily accused, I think, of being unambitious; of not really trying to be like novels but novelisations of unseen episodes that don't play to the strengths of the prose medium. Like, they are often fun enough, but often don't do what the best tie-ins do, refract the parent show though a different and interesting lens.

Moorcock definitely is doing that here... but I didn't find it worked terribly well in the execution. The book is meandering, which can be fine if you enjoy the diversions, but I don't know why there is so much P. G. Wodehouse pastiche when Moorcock is only "quite okay" at it. (I coincidentally read some actual Jeeves and Wooster shortly after this, and the difference was stark.)

The book is at its best when it's weird and big, like the diversion into the all-red universe depicted on the cover. Those are the coolest moments, when the book is audacious, but in a way that transcends the CGI ways in which a tv show can be audacious. There are lots of fun bits; I particularly enjoyed all the goofy sports the characters play, and the role of the Judoon is so very well pitched, having them do stuff we never saw on screen that totally fits with it. Those jokes were probably my favorite. I think Moorcock has a decent handle on both Matt Smith's Doctor and Amy Pond, though not a great one. 

Overall, I'm glad this book exists, but I don't think I'm quite as glad about the actual process of reading it. Still, I look forward to reading future installments in this series.

Justice League International Year Seven, Part I: Destiny's Hand (JLA #70-77 / JLTF #1-3)

This series of posts took a bit of a breather. Partially because I have to track down out-of-print trade paperbacks, but partially also because trying to read the stories in any kind of reasonable or accurate sequence gets much harder around this point! I had been using the Cosmic Teams timeline, but it has lots of placements that very obviously do not make sense if you read the actual stories, making me think it was done from someone's vague memories of the series. So I kept on reading, but put my writeups on pause while I tried to work out the best order.

Now, finally, I am back in action. It is interesting; this era gives you some signs that the Justice League family of titles was in trouble, in that approaches are constantly being jerked around and creative teams switching. But it also gives you indications things were going quite well, because a third ongoing monthly title was added to the lineup. Has there ever been any other era in the history of DC where there were four ongoing Justice League titles? (America, International, and Task Force all as monthlies, but also Quarterly keeps going, with three issues' worth of content every quarter, so essentially another monthly.)

This post covers the end of Dan Jurgens's run on Justice League America (collected in a book called Superman and Justice League America, Volume 2... even though Superman is dead for every single one of these issues!) and the first three issues of Justice League Task Force. Based on chronological considerations, it will be a bit before we get back to JLE, now retitled Justice League International. Plus, a single issue of JLQ!

from Justice League America #76

"Grieving" / "A New Look" / Destiny's Hand / Blood Secrets, from Justice League America #70-77 (Jan.-Late July 1993), reprinted in Superman and Justice League America, Volume 2 (2016)
words/layouts by Dan Jurgens (guest pencils by Sal Velluto), finishes by Rick Burchett and Romeo Tanghal & Bob Smith, letters by Willie Schubert, colors by Gene D'Angelo

So, JLA #69 ended with Superman showing up to battle Doomsday. JLA #70 begins with him dead, having been killed off in Superman #75 as part of the Death of Superman story. The issue first focuses on the reactions of the various League members to the events of the battle with Doomsday: Ice, who had a crush on Superman, is devastated; Blue Beetle is in a coma; Booster is beside himself at both the injury of his best friend and the destruction of his suit. It then takes a broader approach, as other characters show up to grieve, like the Flash and Aquaman and Hawkman and Green Arrow. Even Guy Gardner is sad! It's fine, it does exactly what it should, I suppose. Dan Jurgens's art lifts his story; he's very good at classical heroic heroes emoting, which is exactly what this needs.

The next issue is one of those dull transitional issues, establishing the new status quo for the League: who quits, who joins, &c. Wonder Woman takes over as team leader. Ice quits. Booster and Fire are still around but neither has powers. A bunch of new members join, including the Ray (who lasts for quite a while) and two other characters who I honestly forget were even in the title until I went to write these issues up just now! These are Condor and Agent Liberty. Jurgens never really establishes their deals in an interesting way during his run, and they just vanish after it's over; I am pretty sure they are not written out, they just stop appearing after issue #75! I would say that's typical of the post-Giffen/DeMatteis JLA, which very much struggles to create a compelling mix of characters no matter who's writing.

At this point, Jurgens's run fizzles out. First we get a really boring four-part story about Doctor Dee dreaming a harsher Justice League into existence, which begins to bleed into the real world. It's just not a very interesting idea and it goes on far too long. The whole thing wraps up with a two-part story finally explaining what's been going on with Bloodwynd: he's the Martian Manhunter in the form of Bloodwynd. This is a great twist but not a great story because it turns out J'onn J'onnz thinks he's Bloodwynd so he's acting exactly how Bloodwynd would act. It tells us nothing about either Bloodwynd or J'onn as a character, so what's the point? I do like how Jurgens writes Blue Beetle, though, never forgetting that in addition to being a goofball he's also an obsessive genius.

from Justice League Quarterly #11

"Beautiful, Wonderful, Perfect" / "Heat Wave" / "The Damnation Agenda, Part 1 of 5: The Hiding Kind", from Justice League Quarterly #11 (Summer 1993)
writes by William Messner-Loebs, Pat McGreal & Dave Rawson, and Michael Jan Friedman; pencils by Mike Wieringo & Lee Moder, Dave Cockrum, and Mike Mayhew; inks by Richard Space, Peter Gross, and Dan Davis; letters by Bob Pinaha and Tim Harkins; colors by Gene D'Angelo, Steve Mattsson, and Glenn Whitmore

The lead story in this issue is said to "take place before current issues of Justice League," but there's pretty much nowhere it could go, as it features both Wonder Woman and Ice in the JLA, and Ice quit the same issue Wonder Woman joined (JLA #71). Additionally, Beetle is unseen but mentioned as active, yet he was comatose from JLA #69 to 75. But it can't go later, once Ice rejoins (JLA #85), because by then, Crimson Fox has quit the League!

Anyway, the lead story here has potential but, like all of William Messner-Loebs's contributions to JLQ, is not very well done. The League is asked to protect the wife of a conservative Muslim prince, so only female members can be used. The main characters have to be pretty dumb and gullible for the whole thing to work. There are some decent character moments among the leads, but also I feel like Mike Wieringo and Lee Moder's art wasn't quite ready for prime time. (But then, I guess JLQ isn't exactly prime time.) There's also a flashback story about the Martian Manhunter in the 1960s, battling racism in the South. I wouldn't say it's great comics, but I thought it was solid, and surprisingly nuanced for the early 1990s. It's cowritten by Pat McGreal, who overall did some solid stuff for JLQ; I'd've liked to have seen more work from him. And the art is by the great Dave Cockrum; nice to see him get to cut loose with something other than standard superhero fare.

Lastly, this issue sees the debut of JLQ's first-ever ongoing feature. This stars Praxis... and if you're going, "Who?", I don't blame you. Praxis has a very flimsy JL connection; way back in JLQ #1 he was a member of Conglomerate. It would be quite easy to not remember him! (I see from DCUGuide that he actually debuted in a 1989 Spectre story arc, but I don't think that's ever mentioned in any of his JLQ appearances.) Why would he be picked up for a return appearance? Well, if you remember the 1990s, it's not too surprising: he wears a leather jacket and sunglasses and mostly goes around angsting. So totally of his time it almost reads as parody. Praxis was a cop who failed to save his niece from a serial killer and got superpowers; after Conglomerate fell apart, he returned to police work. The story here, told from the perspective of his female partner, focuses on them trying to stop a new serial killer with a grisly MO. It's by Michael Jan Friedman and Mike Mayhew, both solid comics creators, but I found there was a bit too much narration. Let the story breathe!

from Justice League Task Force #1

"The Tyranny Gun!" / "Split Hit" / "Twisted Glass!", from Justice League Task Force #1-3 (June-Aug. 1993), reprinted in Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague (2018)
written by David Michelinie, pencils by Sal Velluto, inks by Jeff Albrecht, letters by Bob Pinaha, colors by Glenn Whitmore

Justice League Task Force is a new ongoing. It only has two consistent lead characters, Martian Manhunter and Gypsy; other than the two of them, each story arc sees a new team assembled every issue, from a broad mix of DC superheroes. Interestingly, this grabbag approach also extends to the series's writing: David Michelinie gets first author on the collection cover, but actually only writes three of the twelve issues it collects... but no one writes more than three. While ongoing comics with rotating creators aren't unusual, I can't remember another comic I've read where the writer is constantly changing, but the artist is not; Sal Velluto pencilled all but two of the series's first fifteen issues.

In the first story, the UN uses the newly formed Task Force to take down rebels in a Caribbean nation. In this one, in addition to Manhunter and Gypsy, there's the Flash, Aquaman, and Nightwing. I don't really care for it. Sal Velluto has done good work elsewhere but this isn't his best, leaning too much into the early 1990s grim-and-gritty style; the writing is like that, too, with the characters always barking and snarling at each other. I don't find attempts to insert mainstream superhero characters into "realistic" geopolitics very interesting. This must go shortly after JLA #77 for J'onn, but the trauma he went through there is never mentioned, and weirdly, the actual JLA series never mentions why J'onn suddenly never appears again after his return!

I feel like David Michelinie was probably meant to write more of this title than he did. He gets cover credit on the fourth issue even though it was written by someone else (more on that next time), and the ending of #3 seems to set up a recurring villain who never recurs.

This is the eleventh in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers issues #78-83 of JLA, #51-52 of JLI, and #4-8 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) 

Black Panther: Range Wars by John Ridley, Stefano Landini, and Germán Peralta

Black Panther: Range Wars

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2022
Read: November 2025

Writer: John Ridley

Artists: Stefano Landini & Germán Peralta

Color Artists: Matt Milla & Jesus Aburtov

Letterer: Joe Sabino

I really enjoyed volume 1 of John Ridley's Black Panther run, finding it a return to form after Ta-Nehisi Coates's. It was interesting, from a character, action, and thematic perspective, surely the best work on the title since Christopher Priest.

So I was very much surprised by how much I thoroughly disliked this. The first few issues here wrap up the "Long Shadow" arc, and I found them dumb. I get that people might be mad at T'Challa having a secret plan of shadow agents... but I found the reactions here entirely disproportionate. The agents didn't even do anything. Can you get mad at the legitimate ruler of a country for having spies? Because that's literally all he did, yet everyone suddenly acts like T'Challa has committed the ultimate transgression. Yet he very much did "worse" things throughout Priest's run! And suddenly he's being deposed, being hunted by Wakandan police. Does it even make any sense? T'Challa is a popular ruler, you can't just politically turn on a guy like that. I didn't buy any of this at all, it made no sense. Clearly Ridley has a long game he's playing, and he's trying to get all the pieces into position for it, but the hand of the author is too obvious. To make all this work, you need to buy what Ridley is selling, and I did not.

A metaphor, you say? Surely not.
from Black Panther vol. 9 #10 (art by Germán Peralta)

The rest of the book contains another story that actually reads much more like an Avengers story in its features, even if I would say it's a Black Panther story in terms of its project. No longer king of Wakanda, a depressed T'Challa is focusing on his duties as chairman of the Avengers when Earth comes under attack by the "Colonialist," an entity from another dimension. This is science fiction in the classic tradition of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds: what if the aliens did to the Earth (i.e., specifically white people) what white people have been going around doing to other people? The idea is fun enough, there's a couple good jokes, but I didn't find the actual story did as much with it as you might hope for; there's not really any interrogation on the part of the white characters as to what this says about them. I did like the "Buffalo Soldier" character a lot, though.

I was also glad to see Germán Peralta graduate from one-shot/back-up artist to the series main artist. He's good at action and emotional expressiveness; clear composition and good storytelling.

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If You Haven't Got a Penny, Then a Ha'penny Will Do

Visiting Grandma's yarn store in Grandma's sweater.

Our second kid had the misfortune to be born just a couple days before Christmas. This means his birthday almost always bumps up against our travel plans. I think across 2022-24, we were either driving on his birthday, or his birthday was the last Friday of school before winter break, the day before we drove.

But the way these things move around finally worked out to his advantage this year, as Son Two's fifth birthday came three days after the last day of school. So we could spend two days travelling and then celebrate his birthday on a day with no driving... and even be with my family when we did! This coincides with his increasing awareness of his own birthday; this is the first year, I think, where he's been anticipating its arrival for a sustained period of time.

(At first, he was opposed that he wouldn't get to celebrate with his friends on his actual birthday, but he came around eventually, though he keeps referring to the party we'll have now that we're back home as his "fake birthday party.") 

Indeed, it was nice to celebrate. We were at my parents for Christmas, so they were both there, plus my sister and my brother's ex-wife. Son Two got some good presents, and for once, I felt like the presents of the birthday were well-separated from the presents of Christmas... three whole days! And then, instead of just getting to pick what fast-food restaurant we stopped at on our drive, he got a proper meal, generously prepared by my mom. He picked one of his favorite foods, pizza with black olives. And my mom also make a rainbow cake, which totally delighted him.

Son Two is at an interesting age (aren't they all?) where he is incredibly creative and playful but also desirous of a high level of autonomy that he doesn't get to receive. Lots of times his playfulness can be leveraged—he loves to use his turboboosters to race you to the bathroom—but other times it gets in the way—he might not stop playing with a cat toy long enough to actually do what he's supposed to do.

But I think our relationship is improving. He's more like me than Child One in some ways, especially his sense of humor and his desire to tease and be teased. For a long time, I think I often ended up focusing on Child One while my wife focused on Son Two, for lots of good and understandable reasons, but I've been trying to redress that balance a bit. He's into playing games like "hug monster" and he likes spinning imaginary stories with me; he had fun pretending we were driving a stolen car when we were doing Christmas shopping, for example! Some of his bad tendencies he definitely picks up from observing his older sibling, who struggles with violence.

He's starting to figure out reading; he knows all his letters and the sounds they make, but we haven't hit that phonics breakthrough of putting them together to sound out words. Of course, he's only in pre-K, so that's fine! 

His favorite "treat" is chocolate. Santa (i.e., my mother) put a bag of chocolate chips in his stocking, and never was a kid more ecstatic on Christmas morning.

I look forward to seeing how he continues to grow up over the next year. Hopefully he gets a real birthday again.

Reading Roundup Wrapup: December 2025

Pick of the month: BBC VFX by Mat Irvine and Mike Tucker. I read mostly tie-in fiction and comics this month, so nothing was terribly great, but I did find this a pretty effective piece of nonfiction squarely in my interests.

All books read:

1. Black Panther: All This and the World, Too by John Ridley and Germán Peralta
2. The Worthing Chronicle by Orson Scott Card
3. Star Trek Into Darkness by Alan Dean Foster
4. Wesley Dodds: The Sandman by Robert Venditti and Riley Rossmo
5. Milk for Gall by Natalie Louise Tombasco
6. The Lonely Computer and Other Internet Doctor Who Short Trips, 2004-21
7. Gabriel Gale’s Ages of Oz: A Fiery Friendship by Lisa Fiedler, illustrated by Sebastián Giacobino
8. Star Trek: Khan by Mike Johnson, Claudia Balboni, David Messina, et al.
9. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth by Karen Miller
10. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 2 by Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, Stephen Molnar, Erfan Fajar, Claudia Balboni, et al.
11. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 3 by Mike Johnson, Erfan Fajar, Yasmin Liang, Joe Corroney, et al.
12. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 4 by Mike Johnson, Tony Shasteen, Cat Staggs, Rachael Stott, et al.
13. Black Panther: Reign at Dusk, Vol. 1 by Eve L. Ewing, Chris Allen, Mack Chater, and Craig Yeung
14. BBC VFX: The Story of the BBC Visual Effects Department, 1954-2003 by Mat Irvine and Mike Tucker
15. Baby Cat-Face by Barry Gifford
16. Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 by Dan Vado, Kevin West, Rick Burchett, et al.
17. In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle
18. Black Panther: Reign at Dusk, Vol. 2 by Eve L. Ewing, Chris Allen, Craig Yeung, Mack Chater, et al.
19. The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
20. Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague by David Michelinie, Sal Velluto, et al.
21. Star Trek / Green Lantern: The Spectrum War by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez
22. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan
23. Ultimate Black Panther: Peace and War by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto
24. Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds by Mary Shelley, edited by David H. Guston, Ed Finn, and Jason Scott Robert
25. Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume One: Aflame by John Jackson Miller, Federico Dallocchio, Ivan Rodriguez, et al.
26. Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller
27. Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Two: Deluge by John Jackson Miller, Sergio Abad, Iban Coello, et al.

I have not had a month this productive since reading for Ph.D. exams, back in January 2013!

All books acquired:

1. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth by Karen Miller
2. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 4 by Mike Johnson, Tony Shasteen, Cat Staggs, Rachael Stott, et al.
3. The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One
4. The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two
5. The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Three
6. The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four
7. Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 by Dan Vado, Kevin West, Rick Burchett, et al.
8. Doctor Who: Dark Horizons by J. T. Colgan
9. Gabriel Gale’s Ages of Oz: A Dark Descent by Lisa Fiedler, illustrated by Sebastián Giacobino
10. Batman & Robin: Year One by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee
11. Star Trek / Green Lantern: The Spectrum War by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez
12. Three Californias by Kim Stanley Robinson
13. DC Finest: Science Fiction: The Gorilla World by John Broome, Sid Gerson, Murphy Anderson, et al.
14. DC Finest: Events: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part One by Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Doug Moench, George Pérez, et al.
15. Victoria's Secret: Her Life by Lida Bell Lunt
16. The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall
17. Santa from Cincinnati by Judi Barrett and Kevin Hawkes
18. Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 by Dan Vado, Mark Waid, Marck Campos, et al.
19. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller
20. The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
21. The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman
22. Superman: Up in the Sky: The Deluxe Edition by Tom King, Andy Kubert, and Sandra Hope 
23. Novels & Stories: The Female Man / We Who Are About To... / On Strike Against God / The Complete Alyx Stories / Other Stories by Joanna Russ
24. Star Trek / Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez

That was, of course, counterbalanced by all the books I got! I can't blame Christmas for this; presents (#12-17 and 20-23) weren't even a majority of what I acquired.

Currently reading:

• Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 5 by Mike Johnson and Tony Shasteen
• S. by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
• Ultimate Black Panther: Gods and Kings by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto
• Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 by Dan Vado, Mark Waid, Marc Campos, et al.
• Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 3 by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, et al.
• Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller
• Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Three: Escape by John Jackson Miller, Marco Castiello, Vincenzo Acunzo, et al.
• Star Trek / Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez

Up next in my rotations:

1. Formerly Known as the Justice League by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Joe Rubinstein
2. Getting There by Manjula Padmanabhan 
3. Carpatho-Ukraine in the Twentieth Century: A Political and Legal History by Vincent Shandor 
4. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Starcrusher Trap by Mike W. Barr

Books remaining on "To be read" list: 672 (up 1)

 

Star Trek: The Peacekeepers by Gene DeWeese

Star Trek: The Next Generation #2: The Peacekeepers
by Gene DeWeese

Published: 1988
Acquired: ???
Previously read: September 2005
Reread: October 2025

This is an old The Next Generation novel, the second original one ever published. At the time Gene DeWeese wrote it, I am not sure he would have even seen any episodes of the show, probably just read scripts. I felt like the influence of "Heart of Glory" was particularly obvious here: like in that episode, a significant early sequence is about Geordi going aboard a derelict vessel, his VISOR allowing him to see what others cannot.

I was surprised to see on LibraryThing that I read this before. Admittedly, it was exactly twenty years ago, but there are Star Trek books I read longer ago that I still have detailed, vivid memories of. Even as I reread this, absolutely nothing struck a chord of familiarity.

I assume this is because the book is dead boring. It's slow, agonizingly so, like DeWeese realized he had a 200-page idea but had to turn it into a 300-page book. Characters have long conversations, the action is repetitive for no purpose. The alien society is not at all interesting, nor is the dilemma that the book tries to set up, even though I feel like it could be. I think it would take a lot of reworking to make these basic ingredients come alive.

Black Panther: Into the Heartlands by Roseanne A. Brown, Dika Araújo, Natacha Bustos, Claudia Aguirre, et al.

Into the Heartlands: A Black Panther Graphic Novel

Published: 2022
Read: November 2025

Written by Roseanne A. Brown
Illustrated by Dika Araújo, Natacha Bustos & Claudia Aguirre
Layouts by Geoffo
Colors by Cris Peter
Letters by Arianna Maher

This YA graphic novel takes us back to the childhood of T'Challa and Shuri, after the death of their father T'Chaka, before T'Challa ascended to the throne himself. The two children fight and argue, and both seem somewhat ill-prepared for their future responsibilities; T'Challa is a bit pompous, and disdains his younger sister, while Shuri would rather be doing science and thinks she's smarter than anyone else.

Only at a Wakanda ceremony both are ill-prepared for something goes horribly wrong, and people—including their mother, Ramonda—are infected with a mysterious virus. Could the work of T'Challa's birth mother, herself a successful scientist, lead them to a cure in the mysterious heartlands of Wakanda?

The result is a decent book about the two siblings going on a quest together along with a talking jerboa with a mysterious past. Like the flashback story in the recent Long Shadow collection, this leans more into the African storytelling traditions more than many Black Panther stories, and I very much enjoyed that aspect of it. The art is pretty typical for a YA superhero comics, sort of anime influenced, but I particularly enjoyed the vibrant coloring of Cris Peter.

I was a little disappointed in how the character of T'Challa himself was handled. I feel like the story turns much more on Shuri's decisions than his, and would have liked to have seen him project the commanding presence he's more commonly depicted as having.

(Lots of people on the Internet, including the Hoopla catalog, call this book "Shuri and T'Challa: Into the Heartlands," but the "Shuri and T'Challa" part of the title appears nowhere on or in the actual book as far as I can tell.) 

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