Justice League International: The Later Years, Part II: Blue and Gold / Fire & Ice

(I find the use of different forms of "and" in this post title very aesthetically displeasing!)

My feeling is that comics kind of suffer from cyclical nostalgia. It works like this: You have some people who create a character or concept, let's say Potato-Salad Man. Later, Potato-Salad Man gets reinvented for a new era. Still later, the people nostalgic for the original incarnation of Potato-Salad Man become the employees of the comic book company and bring him back to his original version. But then even more later, the people who grew up on the reinvented Potato-Salad Man become adults and they bring that version back.

I think we're hitting that point with Justice League International. In the 2000s we saw the rise of the Geoff Johnses and Grant Morrisons and Mark Waids of comic bookdom, who brought back the classic seven-member JLA they grew up on, and the JLI characters of the 1980s and '90s were shunted off-stage for the most part. But now people like me, who read the JLI version when they were young and impressionable, have become the creators and purchasers of comic books. We haven't hit the point yet where there's a proper JLI title again (though apparently the main Justice League comic these days takes its cues from a different League incarnation people of my generation are nostalgic for, the Justice League Unlimited cartoon), but the last five years have seen three different miniseries bringing back classic duos from the JLI era: a Blue Beetle and Booster Gold reunion comic, and two Fire and Ice reunion comics. I'll be closing out my reading of JLI comics (for now, anyway!) with these series.

from Blue and Gold #1

"Application Denied" / "Pink Slip" / "Omnizon" / "Splittin' Image" / "Fist of the Empire" / "Timely Solution" / "Beetles Abound!"/ "UnMasked At Last", from Blue and Gold #1-8 (Sept. 2021–June 2022)
written by Dan Jurgens; art by Ryan Sook, Cully Hamner, Kevin Maguire, Dan Jurgens, Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur, Paul Pelletier, Norm Rapmund, and Wade Von Grawbadger; colors by Chris Sotomayor, Ryan Sook, and Steve Buccellato; letters by Rob Leigh

This books reunites Blue Beetle and Booster Gold... in the hands of Booster Gold's original creator, Dan Jurgens! I was a bit trepidatious about this going in because it seemed to me that Jurgens treated Booster more seriously during his JLA run (see items #9-11 on the list below) than Giffen and DeMatteis did in their run that created the duo. Could he recreate their dynamic when he hadn't been particularly interested in the original version of it to begin with?

Well, I need not have worried. He very much leans into the goofier version of the characters—but in a good way. Here, they have decided to form a superhero team accessible to "regular" people, unlike the Justice League up in space (very much like in a previous JLI reunion book, see item #16 below). But with Ted no longer in command of the Kord Industries money (he loses it here; I didn't know he had ever got it back, though, because last time I heard he had lost them... though admittedly that was the late 1980s!), they need to find crowdfunding!

It's a fun way to reinvent the fame- and money-obsessed Booster Gold for the twenty-first century. The book is peppered with comments from people watching the livestream of the duo, and I enjoyed this a lot; there's a lot of good interaction and cute hijinks. Some hope they do well, some think it's all faked, some are women stanning for one character or the other, some hope they die... and one is Guy Gardner just there to say mean things about them! But the book is not as cynical as some takes on Booster and Beetle have been, even ones penned by Giffen and DeMatteis. The two bicker, but they fundamentally get along; they seek fame, but it doesn't make them craven or obsessed with money. At their root, they're people trying to do good, and the book leans into that.

Maybe a little too much; I didn't want the book to put them through the wringer per se but it seemed to me it didn't quite challenge them to the extent it might have. But that's clearly not what Jurgens is up to here. The book is obviously meant to just be a light and charming return of some classic characters, and it succeeds perfectly at that.

from Blue and Gold #4

Overall, I enjoyed the art by Ryan Sook and various others. Sook has a light, expressive style that communicates character very well, which is perfectly suited to Jurgens's writing. But why did Ted suddenly acquire black hair? This is redhead erasure! (Also on my collected edition, Kevin Maguire gets cover credit for drawing one-third of one issue. Nice work if you can get it, I guess.)

The first five issues weave in and out of one big story, about Ted and Michael fighting an alien warlord who has an ancient claim on the Earth. There's lots of room for side stuff, though, like a fun issue where Ted and Michael retell the story of how they first worked together, and they have very different memories of it. And it turns out that Guy Gardner of all people knows how things actually went down! (This is the story Maguire helps draw; he does the Beetle-narrated flashbacks while Jurgens himself does the Booster ones. Perfection. They've both still got it of course.)

After this, we get a shorter story about them going up against "Black Beetle." One thing that annoyed me was that throughout the series, there would be explanatory footnotes pointing you to issues you'd literally just read (e.g., "see Blue and Gold #2!" when reading issue #3) but when Black Beetle turns up, the characters talk about encountering him before... but I'd never encountered this guy before. I looked him up later, and he previously appeared in Booster's late 2000s ongoing... a comic from fifteen years prior. Why didn't that get a footnote?

(My other continuity question: How did Blue Beetle come back to life? Based on my research, it seems like the answer is he kind of didn't. Ted was of course killed in "Countdown to Infinite Crisis." Later, when Flashpoint simplified the history of the DC universe, Ted had never been killed because the events of Infinite Crisis just hadn't happened in the "New 52" history. Still later, I guess, much of the post-Crisis pre-Flashpoint history was reinstated... but things like the death of Blue Beetle just weren't, so somehow the post-Crisis history all happened, but Blue Beetle is alive! I think, anyway; I'm not very au fait with continuity changes since 2015's Convergence, when I largely stopped keeping up with DC comics. I did note that though in publication time, Booster and Beetle served in the Justice League from 1987 up to at least 1994, and though in my post-Crisis DC universe timeline that's from "Year Twelve" to "Year Fourteen," here we're told they were only in the League for "months." It must have been some very busy few months!)

Unfortunately there hasn't been a second mini about these characters, nor even (as far as I can tell) any further substantive appearances by them. C'mon, DC, give me that full-fledged JLI nostalgia book!

from Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #1

"Hot Water" / Welcome to Smallville, from Power Girl Special #1 (July 2023) and Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #1-6 (Nov. 2023–Apr. 2024), reprinted in Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville (2024)
written by Joanne Starer, art by Natacha Bustos, colors by Tamra Bonvillain, letters by Ariana Maher

This story brings back the JLI's other well-loved duo, Fire and Ice a.k.a. Bea and Tora, the boisterous Brazilian swimsuit model and the demure Scandinavian ice princess. Here, Bea's impetuousness causes problems, so Superman basically exiles them to Smallville to get their lives under control. This, to be honest, seemed a bit contrived to me.

It's basically fine, but the whole book is brought down by Bea feeling somewhat off. She continuously has zany schemes... but when did she ever have zany schemes before? Bea's thing was a temper and the fact that she saw herself as more of a model than a superhero... but she wasn't fame-obsessed to the extent of say, inviting supervillains to participate in a reality show set in a Smallville hair salon. That's the kind of thing, well, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold would have done. I like the extended cast of characters here well enough, particularly some of the D-list supervillains who sign up for their reality show, and the use of L-RON and Ma Kent. Natacha Bustos is a strong artist, but Joanne Starer's comedy writing isn't strong enough to pull this off. It's more "occasional mild chuckle" than "laugh out loud" even if it is clearly going for the latter.

(Continuity-wise, I guess there was a point where everyone on the Earth knew Superman's secret identity. Was this the Truth storyline? This was later erased, but according to this book, Fire and Ice retained their knowledge of it because of the telepathic link J'onn J'onnz created when the characters all served in the JLA together. But back in those days, Superman's secret identity was a closely guarded secret, not known to even his fellow League members! Also, when was Kooeykooeykooey destroyed? I don't remember this at all. (Ah, the DC wiki says it happened during a post–Zero Hour JLA story, after I stopped reading.)) 

from Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #2

When Hell Freezes Over, from Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1-6 (June-Nov. 2025), reprinted in Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over (2025)
written by Joanne Starer, art by Stephen Byrne, letters by Ariana Maher

I did not think the second one of these minis was as good as the first. The basic idea of Fire and Ice switching powers, and later bodies, is a decent one. The best part is of course how they each dress very differently in each other's bodies. And though I like the idea of a "monkey paw" wish backfiring is a fun one, I don't buy that Fire would be so dumb as to do it in the first place.

The story mostly splits Fire and Ice from their new supporting cast; Fire and Ice go on a quest into Hell to undo the bodyswitch, while their supporting cast deal with their own bodyswitches back in Smallville. But I just don't care enough about these supporting characters to keep track of who is in whose body! The quest in Hell is better, but moves quite slowly, and why use Etrigan if you don't want to write rhymes for him? That's his whole gimmick! Overall, this kind of fizzles out. Still, some decent jokes here and there; I particularly liked the gag about how when the former supervillain with mind-control powers gets bodyswapped from her original black female body into one of a white man, she doesn't need the powers anymore. Also the bit about how Ma Kent instantly recognizes a bodyswap because she spent so much time in weird situations because of her son is good too.

(Continuity notes again: Kord Industries is a sponsor of the new casino in the new Kooeykooeykooey, so has Ted gotten his fortune back since Blue and Gold? Also, it turns out that Bea's father was abusive and trained her as a deadly assassin; again, I would have appreciated a footnote! It doesn't fit at all with what I remember of her Secret Origins story by the Bierbaums. Some research informs me this idea comes from when she was in Checkmate in the mid-2000s; I will have to hunt it down for the full details, I guess.)

Anyway, all three of these stories were fun enough... but when will the JLI nostalgia give us what I really want? Bring them all back in a new ongoing! C'mon, DC, you cowards!

This is the penultimate in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers a reading order for the comics. 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) 
14. Justice League America #86-88 / Justice League International #58-64 / Justice League Task Force #10-12 (Nov. 1993–May 1994) 
15. Justice League America #89-92 / Justice League International #65-68 / Justice League Task Force #13-16 (June 1994–Sept. 1994)
16. Formerly Known as the Justice League / I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League (Feb. 2000–Aug. 2005)

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XLIV: Final Crisis Companion

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2009 (contents: 2008-09) 
Borrowed from the library
Read June 2015

Final Crisis Companion

​

Writers: Grant Morrison, Len Wein, Peter J. Tomasi, Greg Rucka, Eric Trautmann

Artists: J. G. Jones, Tony Shasteen, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Rodney Ramos, Ryan Sook, Marco Rudy
Colorists: Alex Bleyaert, Nei Ruffino, Jeromy Cox
Letterers: Rob Leigh, John J. Hill

Like the Infinite Crisis Companion before it, the Final Crisis Companion collects a number of stories taking place during its mother title. It also includes the Final Crisis #1 "Director's Cut," the uncolored and unlettered art of issue #1 of Final Crisis, along with some commentary from Grant Morrison and J. G. Jones. This is also collected in the back of Absolute Final Crisis, where it comes across as a nice extra: here it's more like padding, trying to get this thin volume up to a marketable length.

Other than that, this contains three stories set during Final Crisis. "Requiem" overlaps with issues #1 and 2, and is about the effects of the death of the Martian Manhunter, with five heroes telepathically hearing his death cries. I remembered absolutely nothing about it when I went to write this review, so I think we can safely assume the story did nothing of interest.

"Resist" is set in the month-long gap between issues #3 and 4, chronicling what Checkmate is doing to fight back against Darkseid. Snapper Carr is in it as a teleporting Checkmate agent, drawing on both Invasion! and The Four Horsemen; for some reason, he ends up having sex with the Wonder Woman villain Cheetah. This is the only thing I remember. Greg Rucka's work with Checkmate in the Infinite Crisis tie-ins was much more interesting.

And then there's "Balancing Act!," which explains how minor villain Libra became an agent of Darkseid and also what he has to do with Starman. Like a lot of these kinds of stories, it answers questions no one was asking, and it seems to exist solely to give writer Len Wein something to compensate him for creating Libra (used heavily by Morrison in the main Final Crisis book) in the first place.

I suggested that the Infinite Crisis Companion stories could have been included in their mother book to answer some outstanding questions left by the main narrative; I have almost the exact opposite recommendation for the Final Crisis Companion. Had these stories gone uncollected, I don't think anyone would have noticed at all.

Next Week: At the same time as this but in the future, it's time for the meeting of the Legion of 3 Worlds!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XXI: Seven Soldiers of Victory, Volume Two

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2011 (contents: 2005-06)
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2014

Seven Soldiers of Victory, Volume Two

Writer: Grant Morrison

Art: Frazer Irving, Pasqual Ferry, Ryan Sook & Mick Gray, Yanick Paquette & Serge Lapointe, Doug Mahnke, Billy Dallas Patton & Michael Bair, Freddie Williams II, J. H. Williams III
Colorists: Frazer Irving, J. H. Williams III, Dave McCaig, Nathan Eyring, Alex Sinclair, John Kalisz, Dave Stewart
Letterers: Pat Brosseau, Jared K. Fletcher, Phil Balsman, Nick J. Napolitano, Travis Lanham, Todd Klein

Seven Soldiers of Victory draws to a conclusion with the stories of three more of the soldiers: Mister Miracle, despite being even more bound up in Kirby's DC mythos than the Guardian, is less successful; I don't think Morrison was going for Kirby pastiche as much here, but then it's difficult for me to say what this story does accomplish.

Frankenstein is an odd one: a series of done-in-one adventures, basically, of a man too monstrous to live in society, but still trying to do good. Like the Hulk, I guess? It's Doug Mahnke's creepy, distorted art that really make these work, it makes the tone come across perfectly. His journey to the Sheeda homeworld is amazing; probably the best single issue in this volume.

The tales of the Bulletteer were probably my favorite, an examination of sex, power, and superheroics, but on the whole, I found the characters in this volume less involving than those in the first.

The whole thing is tied up in "The Miser's Coat". I don't pretend to understand it very much, but it has all the Soldiers lining up and accidentally-on-purpose defeating the Sheeda. No matter what happens, it looks gorgeous, moving through a range of artistic styles as it is revealed the story of the Sheeda goes all the way back to the first superhero-- the first man to wield fire. The narratives that had crossed and intersected before all jumble up here, and it is amazing, as comics meet newspaper reportage meet children's picture book meet crossword puzzle.

I like a lot of these characters and concepts, I hope I will see more of them going forward.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XX: Seven Soldiers of Victory, Volume One

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2010 (contents: 2004-05)
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2014

Seven Soldiers of Victory, Volume One

Writer: Grant Morrison

Art: J. H. Williams III, Simone Bianchi, Cameron Stewart, Ryan Sook & Mick Gray, Frazer Irving
Colorists: Frazer Irving, Dave Stewart, Nathan Eyring, Moose Baumann
Letterers: Todd Klein, Rob Leigh, Pat Brosseau, Jared K. Fletcher, Nick J. Napolitano

Seven Soldiers of Victory doesn't have a whole lot to do with Infinite Crisis, but it does tie into the events of Final Crisis (allegedly), and it takes place during the week prior to Infinite Crisis, so I am reading it here and now. There are some small references (Zatanna's role in Identity Crisis is alluded to, and we're told most superheroes are unavailable), but this is largely a standalone story composed of seven standalone stories, the intersecting stories of the Seven Soldiers as they face the return of the Sheeda. I'll tackle the first few stories in my review of this volume, though some of them actually don't wrap up until Volume Two.

"Weird Adventures" kicks the whole thing off, with (yet another) long-lost Ludlow of Starman/Shade fame being recruited by strange extradimensional entities, while a group of has-been and wanna-be superheroes tries to save the world. There's some plucky courage here, and it's an interesting look at folks who want to be superheroes for all the wrong reasons. And no one does layouts quite like J. H. Williams III.

Seven Soldiers introduces the new Shining Knight, a young man named Ystin who just barely escaped the last time the Sheeda attacked Earth, in the pre-historic past. Except that (spoiler!), Ystin is actually Ystina. I really wanted to like the story more than I did: it had its moments, but largely Ystina is dragged along by events, and I'm not sure what the gender twist actually adds to the story.

Definitely my favorite of all the Seven Soldier is the Manhattan Guardian, an updating of the old Jack Kirby concept (I love the comment that the military sold off the old Project Cadmus stuff, including the Guardian trademark), done in amazingly accurate, but modernized Kirby pastiche style. This story is packed full of fun, crazy concepts: the Subway Pirates of New York (including Captains Falsebeard, No-Beard, and All-Beard), the golem on the third floor, "you arrived right in the middle of a terror-strike on a democratic newspaper," the Newsboy Army (complete with bikes to loan)... and that's just the first chapter! I mean, Kirby himself could have crammed even more in there, but this is excellent stuff for an imitator, and every Guardian story is just a delight.

The Zatanna story is probably the most awkward fit chronologically, despite the fact that this is the only Seven Soldiers story to really reference external events; it's hard to see how the magical conundrums happening here fit with the Spectre's war on magic in Day of Vengeance (though I suppose the fact that the Phantom Stranger was turned into a mouse in Day of Vengenace explains his brief disappearance here). I've never really read a Zatanna story before, but I like her here: used to fulfilling her every desire with magic, now cut off from it and worried she's overdependent. I loved her "sidekick," too, and a lot of the magical antagonists were suitably creepy.

Finally, the tale of Klarion the Witch Boy is probably my least favorite, despite the gorgeous Frazer Irving artwork. Klarion is just a little too self-absorbed to get me interested; I never had a very good feeling as to why I was supposed to care about his story (as opposed to all the others).