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) 

Justice League International Year Seven, Part III: Bloodlines (JLA #84-85 / JLI #53-57 / JLTF #9)

We have just eight regular issues in this set, but that's counterbalanced by there being two annuals and a whopping four issues of Justice League Quarterly. Note that chronological order and publication order are very out of sync between JLA and JLE during this stretch, thanks to the Bloodlines event. In JLA, Bloodlines follows issue #85, cover dated Feb. 1994 (due to the status of Booster Gold and Ice), while for JLE, it must precede issue #53, cover dated Aug. 1993 (due to the status of Elongated Man). This puts the two titles a whole six months off of each other!

from Justice League America #85

"Absolute Power" / "They Might Be Giants", from Justice League America #84-85 (Jan.-Feb. 1994), reprinted in Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 (2017)
written by Dan Vado, pencilled by Kevin West, inked by Ken Branch, letters by Tim Harkins, colors by Gene D'Angelo

Ice was written out during Dan Jurgens's JLA run; following the death of Superman, she left the team. During Dan Vado's run, he began periodically checking in on her as she returned to her people... only to discover that her brother had gone mad with power and was deposing her father and imposing a dictatorship. She sent her mother for help, and her mother arrived during the "evil Guy" story arc, so following its conclusion, the JLA finally goes to help Ice in this two-part story.

Let's say you were a fan of Ice. Unfortunately, nothing that makes Ice a fun character can be found in this story that supposedly focuses on her, which is all ridiculous posturing and snarling and big fights. And while it's not the fault of Dan Vado and artists Kevin West and Ken Branch, the trade paperback reprints the pages of issue #85 almost entirely out of order. With a more interesting story, I'd be willing to put in the work to figure out how to read it... but this story just isn't worth it. (I can't find anyone else on the Internet complaining about this, so I don't know if my copy has a unique issue, or if no one else has ever bothered to read their copy of Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1!)

from Justice League Quarterly #12

"Negative Feedback" / "On the Road" / "A Man of Parts" / "Love Is War" / "Grandpas and Other Strangers" / "The Unkindest Cut" / "Havoc Unleashed!" / "Scent of Fear" / "Flight" / "Ascent into the Abyss" / "A Hole in the World!" / "Galway Girls" / "The Devil You Know!", from Justice League Quarterly #12-15 (Autumn 1993–Summer 1994)
written by Mark Waid, Kim Fryer, Michael Jan Friedman, Kevin Dooley, Paul Kupperberg, Pat McGreal, Steven T. Seagle, and David De Vries; pencilled by Dan Rodriguez & Antonio Daniel, Mike Wieringo, Mike Mayhew, Greg LaRocque, Michael Collins, Mike Vosburg, Frank Squillace, Mark Tenney, and Eddy Spurlock; inked by Ken Branch, Frank Percy, Mike Christian, Dan Davis, Aaron McClellan, Terry Beatty, Eduardo Barreto, Mike Vosburg, Bam, Bob Smith, Ray Kryssing, and Don Hillsman; colored by Buzz Setzer, Tom McCraw, Glenn Whitmore, Matt Webb, David Grape, Gene D'Angelo, Phil Allen, and Mia Wolf; lettered by Willie Schubert & John Workman, Albert De Guzman, Bob Pinaha, Clem Robins, Ken Bruzenak, and Agnes Pinaha

These four issues of Justice League Quarterly all seem to fit in this general time period: in JLA-centric stories, Captain Atom is back, for example, while in JLI-centric stories, Crimson Fox, Elongated Man, and Hal Jordan are all still around. They also feature parts two through five of the ongoing Praxis story, "The Damnation Agenda." I'll go issue by issue here, except I'll save my comments on the Praxis story for the end.

Issue #12 launches with a Conglomerate lead story. This is, if I'm counting correctly, the third Conglomerate story from JLQ, and the third version of the team. Like the first (see item #6 below), it's about the tension between corporate interests and altruism; like the first, the team is a mix of returning characters (I recognized the JSA's Jesse Quick and Infinity, Inc.'s Nuklon) and new ones (I think so, anyway; I didn't recognize them). The art is all 1990s in what I would say is the worst possible way (except I've read Marc Campos's JLA run, so I know even worse is possible) and the new characters are pretty ridiculous. Worst of all, though, is that even though this is by Mark Waid and thus has some nice moments... we've read it all before, because this is just the original Conglomerate story over again! I'm guessing this was an attempt to set the team up for future adventures, but I'm not aware of any. This issue's non-Praxis backup is a flashback story about Ice and Doctor Light going on a road trip together; you've read better but you've read worse. A couple cute moments, but it doesn't always ring true.

from Justice League Quarterly #13

Issue #13's lead story focuses on Maxima and Captain Atom. Maxima's old consort, Ultraa, comes to Earth to take on Superman and resume his relationship with Maxima; however, at the same time, Maxima has decided to pursue Captain Atom instead. Captain Atom is dealing with his own issues, though, and doesn't think he can love again. There's probably a good story to be told with these ingredients, and this isn't the worst, but it wasn't very great either. I don't think Greg LaRocque has the character chops to pull this off, but he does draw a pretty Maxima.

One of the recurring features of JLQ has been getting Paul Kupperberg, who wrote the 1980s miniseries that reestablished Power Girl as an Atlantean, to write stories focused on Kara, continuing threads begun in that mini. Issue #13 contains the last of those, but it also seems to be dealing with threads for Kupperberg's Arion ongoing. I've read neither of these series, and I very much struggled to care about all this. Kupperberg also performs cleanup duties on issue #14's lead story, which seems to be focused on loose threads from the cancelled Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt ongoing, as Thunderbolt, along with Captain Atom, Nightshade, and Blue Beetle work together to take down a Thunderbolt villain. Again, it gets too much into the weeds with concepts from a series I haven't actually read, so not even some solid Mike Collins art can save it. The last page made me realize why this seemingly random collection of characters: they were all originally published by Quality Comics. Cute gag, I guess, but why build a story around it? The JL connection here seems slight. (Of the four, only Beetle is currently a member.)

#14 has two backups, one about the Crimson Fox, one about a new new Jack O'Lantern. The Fox one is by the usually dependable Pat McGreal, but like too many Crimson Fox stories, focuses on a man manipulating her sexuality. The Jack O'Lantern one is, surprisingly, a pro-choice story where he has to defend a woman fleeing her Irish Catholic community for England so she can get an abortion; the anti-abortion activists go to ridiculous lengths to stop her. O'Lantern spends the whole story going on about how he doesn't think abortion is moral but the girl has a right to do it anyway, which feels like a very 1990s take on the debate. Super heavy handed, and I'm kind of surprised it was even published.

There's another Jack O'Lantern backup in #15, which was so boring I never figured out what was going on. The fun story here is the Tasmanian Devil one, who joined the JLI in issue #50, but never got a lot of focus. Despite some confusing art, I enjoyed this one. Similarly, there's a Ray backup with ugly art but some good jokes. (I did not know Ray was a Star Trek fan.)

from Justice League Quarterly #15

So parts two through four of the Praxis story, "The Damnation Agenda," are backups in issues #12-14; then the longer concluding installment is the lead story in issue #15. It's fine. I think there are occasional flashes of something interesting, pulled down by the need to conform to a lot of clichés of the genre, like the fact that Praxis's female partner has to fall in love with him but he has to angst about it. Also, Praxis's power is to manipulate electricity, but this gets broadened to manipulating anything with electrons in it. 1) This is not the same thing at all, and 2) leads to a lot of dumb moments where people say things like, "I forget air was matter too!" In the last installment, some random members of the JLI show up (I guess to justify why this whole story appeared in a JLI-focused ongoing) but the story needs to make sure they're not essential to the resolution. I honestly got pretty lost in the thaumababble of the climax. On the whole, I would say the whole Praxis story wasn't as bad as I feared but probably not worth devoting five issues of JLQ to either.

Back when I wrote up issues #8-10 of JLQ (see #10 below) I said this series was probably my favorite of the then-three Justice League ongoings. Unfortunately, it seems to have plummetted off a cliff fairly quickly; we've gone from cute fleshing out of the characters of the JLI to desperate chasing of the worst trends of 1990s comics.

from Justice League International Annual vol. 2 #4

"Bloody London", from Justice League International Annual vol. 2 #4 (1993)
written by Gerard Jones, pencilled by Mike Parobeck, inked by Luke McDonnell, lettered by Clem Robins, colored by Gene D'Angelo

Bloodlines was the big crossover through DC's 1993 annuals; alien parasites fell to Earth, taking over people and turning them into monsters, but also creating the "New Bloods," heroes with powers to counter the parasites. To be honest, I'm a bit murky on the details; while I've systematically collected some of the themed annuals of the 1980s and '90s, what I have read of Bloodlines has demonstrated it to be everything that made the early 1990s a bad time for comics.

This isn't the worst. Gerard Jones's story focuses on Elongated Man, Tasmanian Devil, and Metamorpho hunting a serial killer in London, which is a good concept; Jones always does great by Ralph, and the premise is well-suited to him. Unfortunately, we also get a lot about Lionheart, the kind of angsty 1990s superhero who's torn between a government master and doing the right thing, with a dollop of English working-class resentment thrown in. I do in general think that Mike Parobeck is a really good artist, but a story about disgusting alien superkillers is not really a match for his cartoony sensibilities (though I do always like seeing him draw Elongated Man).

"Only the Lucky Ones Die", from Justice League America Annual #7 (1993), reprinted in Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 (2017)
written by Bill Loebs, pencilled by Greg LaRocque, inked by Robert Jones, Mark Stegbauer, & Bob Downs, letters by Ken Bruzenak, colors by Gene D'Angelo

Now this one is bad. It's written by William Messner-Loebs, not Dan Vado, but unfortunately Loebs does a good job of imitating the Vado style on JLA, where everyone snarls and argues all the time. Lots of gratuitous darkness and violence. Somehow this run on JLA keeps sinking to new lows.

from Justice League International vol. 2 #54

"Deadly Liasions" / "Impostors" / "Lest Darkness Fall" / "Ambush" / "Inferno!", from Justice League International vol. 2 #53-57 (Aug.-Late Oct. 1993)
written by Gerard Jones & Will Jacobs; pencilled by Ron Randall and Mike Collins; inked by Randy Elliott, Aaron McClellan, Roy Richardson, and Romeo Tanghal; letters by Willie Schubert and Clem Robins; colors by Gene D'Angelo

Gerard Jones's run from JLE #37 to JLI #52 or so wasn't Great Art, but it was very much Solid Superhero Team Comics. Interesting characters, fun interactions, interesting villains, clever resolutions. Suddenly that goes away here. The first issue here is okayish, about Metamorpho following Crimson Fox to Paris. Fox's old boyfriend who she thought was dead turns out to be alive; he convinces her to fake her death to be with him. And she does. But why? I thought this was going somewhere, but it never does, she's just gone. What a weird way to write her out. But it's fun seeing Metamorpho kick up a storm in Paris; I love it when Jones makes up doofy European superheroes.

After this, though, things get very bad very quick. Lots of ideas that feel underbaked or dropped. Like, issue #54 is about everyone acting weirdly: Doctor Light puts on sexy lingerie to seduce Taz, for example. It turns out everyone has been replaced by robots, and they guy who did this is messing with their programming, and then he takes them to the future to fight in a war for him? Why? There's some attempt to make the conflict in the future philosophically interesting but the JLI just picks a side and fights people and none of the philosophy matters to that. Then the characters are back in the present day punching cultists?? And then it's over??? Kind of, anyway, all of these concepts will come back in future issues even thought they weren't worth devoting much time to to begin with.

Ralph and Sue (and, randomly, the ghost of Duke Donald) are written out at the end of issue #57. On the one hand, I'm grumpy because Ralph is literally my favorite; on the other hand, I'm glad my favorite character isn't around for the even worse issues to come. 

What was the problem? Was Gerard Jones losing steam? Or was editorial jerking him around? Probably both.

from Justice League Task Force #9

"Saturday Night's All Right for Fightin'!", from Justice League Task Force #9 (Feb. 1994), reprinted in Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague (2018)
written by Jeph Loeb, pencilled by Greg LaRocque, inked by Kevin Conrad, lettered by Bob Pinaha, colored by Glenn Whitmore

This one-off JLTF issue is a followup to Bloodlines; Martian Manhunter is trying to enjoy an evening alone in the League's New York embassy (I think this is the first indication we get that he still resides there now that he leads the JLTF, actually) when some "New Bloods" turning up wanting training. He ends up working with them to defeat some parasites, and shenanigans ensue. It's mildly funny, but writer Jeph Loeb dedicating the issue to Keith Giffen was probably just dooming himself to being an also-ran when it comes to funny League stories. You can never make me care about the New Bloods, sorry guys.

This is the thirteenth in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers issues #86-88 of JLA, #58-64 of JLI, and #10-12 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)

Review: Star Trek Comics Classics: Convergence and Generations by Michael Jan Friedman, et al.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2007 (contents: 1994-95)
Acquired December 2008
Read June 2019

Star Trek: Convergence

Scripts by Michael Jan Friedman & Howard Weinstein
Pencilled by Gordon Purcell, Ken Save, and Steve Erwin
Inked by Jerome Moore & Terry Pallot, Sam de la Rosa, and Charles Barnett
Lettered by Willie Schubert, Chris Eliopoulos, and Bob Pinaha

Colored by Rick Taylor and Dave Grafe

This volume from Titan collects three different DC Comics stories where there's interaction-- convergence, if you will-- between the original and Next Generation crews. One of those stories is the adaptation of Star Trek Generations, so I read it after finished Star Trek: Movie Classics Omnibus from IDW, which contains the first six movies. (The only Star Trek film adaptation to never be collected is Marvel's Star Trek: First Contact, though there weren't adaptations of Insurrection, Nemesis, or Beyond.)

from Star Trek Generations (script by Michael Jan Friedman, art by Gordon Purcell and Jerome Moore & Terry Pallot)

The Generations adaptation is competent but uninspired; mostly it's nice to see some deleted scenes that didn't make it into the film, like retired Captain Kirk going orbital skydiving, or Soran's torture of Geordi La Forge. On the other hand, some of the film's little bits of business become so shrunk down you wonder why Michael Jan Friedman even bothered to keep them; I don't see how anyone could follow the "Mr. Tricorder" bit. Gordon Purcell is a great artist, so I was pleased to see him doing his thing here. I was also amused that he faithfully renders how the Enterprise-D crew are constantly changing uniforms, even down to how Riker rolls up his sleeves to disguise the fact that Jonathan Frakes was given Avery Brooks's uniform from Deep Space Nine, and Frakes has longer arms. Surely a comics adaptation is a place to smooth out visual production exigencies and just make everything look as nice as possible!

from Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #6 (script by Michael Jan Friedman, art by Ken Save & Sam de la Rosa)

The storyline "Convergence" is reprinted here, but since I'd just read that in IDW's The Gary Seven Collection, I did not reread it. It looks like the quality of reproduction is higher here, though.

from Star Trek: The Next Generation Special #2 (script by Michael Jan Friedman, art by Steve Erwin & Charles Barnett)

Finally, there's a short little story about how Captain Morgan Bateson is struggling to adapt to twenty-fourth-century life (following the events of "Cause and Effect") and Scotty comes along to help him out (following the events of "Relics"). Which is a little weird now that I think about it, because Bateson actually jumped forward in time first! I referenced this story in my first published piece of Star Trek fiction but don't tell anyone, I'd never actually read it before now.

Next Week: One last Star Trek film adaptation... First Contact!

Review: Star Trek: The Gary Seven Collection by Howard Weinstein, Rod Whigham, Ken Save, Sam de la Rosa, et al.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2009 (contents: 1993-95)
Acquired February 2009
Read May 2019

Star Trek Archives, Volume 3: The Gary Seven Collection

Written by Howard Weinstein & Michael Jan Friedman
Pencils by Rod Whigham & Ken Save
Inks by Romeo Tanghal, Arne Starr, Carlos Garzon & Sam de la Rosa
Letters by Bob Pinaha

Colors by Tom McCraw, Rick Taylor & Chris Eliopoulos

As always, I have a beef with IDW's entire collecting strategy. Once again, the Star Trek Archives decided to focus their energy on what had been reprinted before, when so many Star Trek comics have never been reprinted at all. The first story arc here had been reprinted in DC's Revisitations, which you can track down for about $10 on the secondary market; the second story was reprinted just two years earlier by Titan in their Star Trek Comics Classics line! Like, why bother?

from Star Trek vol. 2 #50 (script by Howard Weinstein, art by Rod Whigham and Arne Starr & Carlos Garzon)

And as always, the books themselves are shoddy. The title of this according to the title page is "The Gary Seven Collection"; all of the other Star Trek Archives have titles that begin "Best of...", and this one's cover thus calls it "Best of The Gary Seven Collection," I think because someone forgot to take "Best of" off. Ouch. The credits opposite the copyright page contain multiple errors, giving inkers credits on issues they did not work on, Howard Weinstein an unwarranted plot credit, and misnumbering an issue. And the indicia gets the issues wrong, claiming the included comics are reprinted from Star Trek: The Peacekeeper #49-50, Star Trek: Convergence #6, and Star Trek: The Next Generation: Convergence #6, when in fact they are reprinted from Star Trek vol. 2 #49-50, Star Trek Annual vol. 2 #6, and Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #6.

from Star Trek vol. 2 #50 (script by Howard Weinstein, art by Rod Whigham and Arne Starr & Carlos Garzon)

But what of the actual stories? I have a fondness for Gary Seven; I think he's the kind of fun whimsy that can exist at the fringes of the Star Trek universe. John Byrne did a good job capturing this in his Assignment: Earth miniseries a few years back, with adventures plugged into the colorful highlights of the 1960s and 1970s.

from Star Trek vol. 2 #50 (script by Howard Weinstein, art by Rod Whigham and Arne Starr & Carlos Garzon)

These stories, though, don't really lean into that aspect of the character. The first story collected here, "The Peacekeeper," is a decent technological thriller about a superweapon, but a bigger part of the focus is the "Aegis" Gary works for, and few of his fellow agents who have gone rogue and are trying to strike back against their masters. I enjoyed the story, but wanted more Gary and more color.

from Star Trek Annual vol. 2 #6 (plot by Howard Weinstein & Michael Jan Friedman, script by Howard Weinstein, art by Ken Save & Sam de la Rosa)

The second, "Convergence," is utterly tedious. It has a great premise: someone is kidnapping people who are important to Federation/Romulan history from out of time: a Romulan general, Spock, Captain Harriman of the Enterprise-B, Data,* and Chancellor Gowron. This changes the timeline, and the crews of the Enterprise-A and Enterprise-D end up working at the same time to fix it, unknown to each other.

from Star Trek Annual vol. 2 #6 (plot by Howard Weinstein & Michael Jan Friedman, script by Howard Weinstein, art by Ken Save & Sam de la Rosa)

But nothing happens, even though both issues are double-length. The Romulan, Harriman, Spock, and Data just talk and talk and talk, even though such a collaboration could be awesome. The two Enterprise crews just wander around a foggy planet. History has changed in the Next Generation era thanks to the removal of Spock and Harriman from history, but even though we see Ambassador Sybok, he promptly vanishes from the story before anything can be done with him. I'm sure this story had some limitations, but the novel Federation came out around the same time and managed to make the two Enterprise crews not meeting into an epic event regardless. This is a damp squib, and again, barely makes use of what makes Gary Seven a fun character.

(And the whole collection has no Roberta Lincoln at all! At least Isis turns up.)

from Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #6 (script by Michael Jan Friedman, art by Ken Save & Sam de la Rosa)

I read these where they take place, between the comics adaptations of Final Frontier and Undiscovered Country. What I hadn't realized before reading is that they were written later. Admiral Cartwright shows up in "The Peacekeeper," with a slightly sinister agenda, and Harriman's appearance in "Convergence" was a total surprise. Two bits of nice retro-foreshadowing that justified my whole project. I also liked that Saavik was brought back as the Enterprise-A's helm officer following the departure of Sulu for his own command on Excelsior.

Next Week: We find out what happened after Star Trek VI, in... Convergence!

* Of course, these comics were written fifteen years before, but you could take this as foreshadowing Nemesis if you wanted.

Review: Empty Space by Michael Jan Friedman and Calo Cacau

Comic PDF eBook, n. pag.
Published 2019 (contents: 2018-19)
Acquired and read June 2019

Empty Space

Writer: Michael Jan Friedman
Pencils and inks / Colors: Calo Cacau
Colors: Marcos Martins
Letters: Jim Campbell and Zaak Saam

This is the collected edition of an indie comic miniseries funded through Kickstarter, which I backed since it was written by Michael Jan Friedman, longtime writer of space opera in comics and prose (mostly Star Trek, of course, but also The Darkstars!). The series is about a ship's captain who wakes up to find out he died and was brought back to life as a weapon of war. The final result is fine. Friedman's heyday as a comics writer was the 1990s, and it shows here: the narration is repetitive and details are spelled out when they don't need to be. It's decent space adventure stuff, but the character work is thin, which is a shame because I feel like characterization was Friedman's strength as a writer: more could have been made of being an "Empty" but it's mostly a background element, and most of the side characters are pretty generic. Calo Cacau's art is solid and well done; I hope he goes places.

DC Darkstars Reading Order

Here's an appendix to yesterday's essay:

Of all the ongoing series I've read over the past couple years, The Darkstars has been the hardest to follow, thanks to an incessant series of crossovers throughout its run. And since there's not much out there on the Internet about it, I didn't have a lot to go off when buying it, and I inevitably ended up missing stuff, and would only realize when I read an issue and it made a footnote referring to an issue of another series. So, for anyone who comes after me (?), here's a complete reading order including major and minor crossovers.

• Prequels / Side Stories
• Showcase '95 #10
• Martian Manhunter Special #1
• Darkstars #1-6
• Green Lantern (vol. 3) #40
• Darkstars #7-10
• Trinity
• DC Universe: Trinity #1
• Green Lantern (vol. 3) #44
• L.E.G.I.O.N. '93 #57
• Darkstars #11
• Green Lantern (vol. 3) #45
• L.E.G.I.O.N. '93 #58
• Darkstars #12
• DC Universe: Trinity #2
• Darkstars #13-20
• Guy Gardner: Warrior #20-21
• Darkstars #21-24
• Darkstars #0
• Darkstars #25-29
• Green Lantern (vol. 3) #61
• Darkstars #30-31
• The Crimelord-Syndicate War
• Deathstroke (vol. 1) #48
• New Titans #122
• Darkstars #32
• Deathstroke (vol. 1) #49
• Darkstars #33
• The Siege of the Zi Charam
• New Titans #124
• Green Lantern (vol. 3) #65
• Darkstars #34
• Damage #16
• New Titans #125
• Darkstars #35-36
• Green Lantern (vol. 3) #69
• Darkstars #37
• Guy Gardner: Warrior #37
• Darkstars #38
• Green Lantern (vol. 3) #70
• Green Lantern (vol. 3) #74-75

The Darkstars: A Forgotten DC Space Heroes Comic

Over the past year or so I've been reading uncollected DC Comics superhero comics that take place in space; thus far, I've read The Omega Men (1983-86) and L.E.G.I.O.N. (1989-94). None of these have exactly been well-known to contemporary comics readers, but they have their dedicated fans. But most recently I read The Darkstars (1992-96), which pushed obscurity to a whole new level. Both Omega Men and L.E.G.I.O.N. have had multiple, subsequent revivals; Darkstars is lucky if anyone even remembers characters were in it.

SENSATIONAL, you say?
Darkstars #1 (Oct. 1992, cover by Travis Charest, Larry Stroman, and Scott Hanna)

Darkstars was the brainchild of Michael Jan Friedman, best known as the author of numerous Star Trek stories in both prose and comics; at the time, he was the writer of DC's Star Trek: The Next Generation comics (a position he held from 1989 to 1996). Pretty impressively, Friedman wrote all 39 issues of Darkstars himself, without a single fill-in. But exactly what Darkstars was supposed to be is unclear from the beginning. The premise is that the Darkstars are a space law-enforcement organization, part of an organization called NEMO (the Network for the Establishment and Maintenance of Order), created by the Controllers, an offshoot of the same alien race as the Guardians of Oa, the power behind the Green Lantern Corps. They fly around the galaxy fighting crime with the aid of their exo-mantles, suits with built-in masers and force fields.

The problem with this is that it's never really clear what makes Darkstars distinct from Green Lantern. They're both about lone members of big space organizations working on Earth. The Darkstar of Darkstars is Ferrin Colos, recently off a failure to save the planet of Genuwyne, which he angsts over occasionally; he sets up in Dallas, Texas when he finds out that the alien Syndicate he's been pursuing has set up on operation there on Earth. Darkstars is a little distinguished from Green Lantern in that Darkstars deputize locals with their own exo-mantles: in Colos's case, John Flint, a local cop with an "attitude" problem, and Mo Douglas, a homeless man.

This cover shows off both the original main characters (Colos, Mo, Carla, Flint) and the weird faces.
Darkstars #7 (Apr. 1993, cover by Travis Charest)

"Green Lantern with attitude" is how the notes of the writer and editor describe the series on occasion... but with all due respect, Michael Jan Friedman is the exact wrong man to hire to write such a series. I grew up with his Star Trek work, and the only attitude Friedman possesses is "nice," and the same usually goes for his characters. Which makes him a great fit for Star Trek: The Next Generation and spin-offs thereof (I was a fan of his Stargazer prequel novels), but I would never on my life hire him for anything described as "[x] with attitude" (which is maybe the most 1990s description I can imagine).

Phase I: Ferrin Colos on Earth (Issues #1-22)

Darkstars divides neatly into two distinct phases. The first concerns Colos and his two human deputies on Earth. At first these are Flint and Mo, as I said above; later, Colos fires Flint because he's reckless and replaces him with Carla White, a black lawyer who quit her job because she realized she was defending the wrong people. (Flint is later kidnapped by aliens and mutated into a killing machine.) This part of the comic is pretty fun, if you put aside the hints of "attitude," it's mostly a light-hearted superhero adventure comic. The best issue is clearly #8, "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys!", where Carla takes Colos to a local dive bar for fun, and Colos ends up arguing with locals, riding the mechanical bull, and fighting an alien bounty hunter. I don't know if this is what Friedman was aiming for, but it felt like the platonic ideal of the comic to me.

The cover is sort of amazingly terrible, whereas the story is terribly amazing.
Darkstars #8 (May 1993, cover by Travis Charest)

The characters are mostly pretty fun, too. Colos is your typical sort of alien straight-man, except for his occasional angst about the deaths he didn't stop on Genuwyne, which was always difficult for me to take seriously, because "Genuwyne" seems like what Peter David would name a planet as a set-up for a terrible pun on "genuine." I liked both Mo and Carla, though I felt the characters never got to live up to their potential because most of the plots in the early issues are generic punch-ups, usually against original, undistinguished villains, henchmen of the alien Syndicate. (The leader of the Syndicate himself, Sla Daniiki, was fun, but he rarely directly meets our heroes.)

The extent to which they're minimized as characters is perhaps most driven home in Trinity, an eight-part crossover with L.E.G.I.O.N. and Green Lantern (issues #11-12 of Darkstars) where the two of them just stand around and nothing at all is done with them being humans on an alien planet for the first time. They both have interesting backstories that rarely are dealt with: like, what was the effect of homelessness and then the lack thereof on Mo? Who knows. I also really liked Annie, the non-superhero who they hire to be their secretary. She never had enough to do, but was always fun when she was there with her matter-of-fact attitude toward the odd job she'd been hired for.

What the hell is this?
Darkstars #11 (Aug. 1993, cover by Travis Charest)

The thing that really hurts the early issues is the series's inability to maintain a consistent art team, which is comically embarrassing. No one lasts more than one or two issues, even though the editor is constantly trumpeting each new penciller/inker combo as the new team. Here's how they fare:

• #1-3: Larry Stroman and Scott Hanna (3 issues)
• #4-7: Travis Charest and Scott Hanna (4 issues)
• #8-9: Patrick Zircher and John Lowe (2 issues)
• #11-12 & 14: Mitch Byrd and Ken Branch (3 issues)
• #15 & 17: Christopher Taylor and Ken Branch (2 issues)
• #19-38 & 0: Michael Collins and Ken Branch (21 issues)

This obviously doesn't count one-issue fill-ins (on issues #10, 13, 16, & 18) or art assists (on issues #7-8 & 14). Thankfully, once Michael Collins turns up, he never misses an issue and never requires an assist, but more on him later. The inconsistent art is also a problem because most of the early artists are terrible, working in the 1990s Rob Liefield idiom of warped waists and squashed faces.

I like this cover artist in a general sense, but he felt like a tonal mismatch for Darkstars.
Darkstars #18 (Mar. 1994, cover by Randy DuBurke)

Despite its issues, the early issues of Darkstars show potential for enjoyable light comic, even if it seems slightly purposeless.

Phase II: Donna Troy in Space (Issues #23-24, 0, 25-38)

Then, suddenly everything changes. I don't know if Darkstars was in a steep sales decline (figures on The Comics Chronicles begin with issue #29, alas), but Colos is implicated (unjustly) in a conspiracy and suddenly ends up exiled to another universe. Just as suddenly, Donna Troy (formerly Wonder Girl and then Troia of the Teen Titans/New Teen Titans/New Titans, but now powerless) is recruited as the new Darkstar of Earth, and John Stewart (formerly a Green Lantern, but since the cancellation of Green Lantern: Mosaic and the destruction of the Green Lantern Corps in Emerald Twilight, without a book or purpose) is recruited as the new head of NEMO by the Controllers.

I also looked for a John Stewart cover, but apparently the guy never got one, despite essentially being co-lead with Donna.
Darkstars #23 (Aug. 1994, cover by Mike Deodata, Jr.)

The book goes from being its own little corner of the DC universe (with occasional, but largely self-contained crossovers with Hawkman, Green Lantern, and The Flash) to being a home for left-over characters from other books and being constantly involved in crossovers, especially with New Titans (as Donna is also a member there) and Green Lantern (as Donna is dating new Green Lantern Kyle Rayner). It makes the book a pretty difficult read, as you have to follow three or four other books to get the full story of crossovers like The Crimelord-Syndicate War (which finishes off some key plot points from Darkstars) and The Siege of the Zi Charam (which is terrible). Plus Darkstars is not Donna's primary book, so most of the important things that happen to the main character of this book are going on over in New Titans, which just leaves Darkstars as a repository for emotionally empty fight scenes. Darkstars is constantly reacting to the agenda of other books, never setting its own. [Tomorrow, I'll be posting a full reading order for Darkstars that shows the ridic number of crossovers it was involved in.]

So much crossover!
Darkstars #34 (Sept. 1995, cover by Michael Collins and Ken Branch)

Sadly, Mo Douglas and Carla White are written out pretty perfunctorily in issue #29, with Mo joining a Battlestar Galactica-esque refugee space fleet and Carla returning to legal work. Mo puts in the occasional two-page appearance throughout the rest of the run, but Carla gets a one-page cameo on the last page of #38 and that's it. Annie pops up here and there occasionally (she even moves into the New Titans HQ at one point), but vanishes too. One gets the feeling the Friedman never got to write these characters (or the other recurring characters, like Prigatz, the immediate supervisor of Colos and Donna, or the nun who was friends with Mo) the way he really wanted to.

Interestingly, interior artist Michael Collins would later homage this cover with his cover for Star Trek: Early Voyages #12
Darkstars #29 (Mar. 1995, cover by Mike Deodata, Jr.)

This did improve sales figures:

data courtesy The Comics Chronicles

I don't know what figures were like prior to #29 (Jan. 1995), but you'll see that the crossovers The Crimelord-Syndicate War in #32 (Jul. 1995) and The Siege of the Zi Charam in #34 (Sept. 1995) both pull the series from an average sales rank in the 240s up to one in the 170s. But it must have been too little or too late, as the series was cancelled with #38 (Nov. 1995).

The one bright spot in this era is the consistent artwork of Michael Collins. Collins has a bold, traditional superhero style that really suits Friedman's writing; I know Collins's later work on titles like Star Trek: Early Voyages and a huge number of stories for Doctor Who Magazine, so I was pleased to see him here.

I really like the visual callback to the cover of issue #1, with the background now including all of the series's significant guest stars.
Darkstars #38 (Jan. 1996, cover by Michael Collins and Ken Branch)

I will admit that the last issue made me a little misty-eyed, as Colos finally reunites with Carla White (apparently they're in love, but I was never really sure why). Despite this series's myriad problems, it had potential, and I like its protagonists.

Afterlife

Donna Troy and John Stewart are still Darkstars when the series ends, and they pop up occasionally in that capacity for a little bit, until a two-part story in Green Lantern (vol. 3) #74-75, where Kyle Rayner fights the illegitimate son of Darkseid. Basically the Darkstars turn up to be gunned down to prove the situation is serious. When the story begins, all but a dozen are already dead, and all but four are dead by the end of the series. Given Mo Douglas was still a Darkstar in Darkstars #38 but doesn't appear here, that means one of our main characters got killed offscreen without even a mention. Some of the surviving Darkstars, which include Colos, do put in occasional appearances in other DC space stories, but Carla White is never seen again, apparently, so who knows what happened to her.

Um, none of these characters, actually.
Green Lantern (vol. 3) #74 (June 1996, cover by Darryl Banks and Romeo Tanghal)

Donna and John retire at the end of this story, and Darkstars really only continues to remembered as a footnote in their convoluted histories, like in this installment of Comics, Everybody! about Donna.

Poor Darkstars. You could have been something great.