"Starman" by Gerry Conway, Mike Vosburg, and Mike Royer

A long time ago, I didn't read superhero comics. It's hard to believe, I know! But compared to many of my interests, I came to them relatively late, not until I was in college. One of my gateways was a blog called, I think, Comics 101 by Scott Tipton (later a writer for IDW's Star Trek and Doctor Who comics). Tipton would do deep dives on different comics characters—his history of Green Arrow was responsible, for example, for my deep and abiding interest in the character. I feel like you can find this stuff all over the Internet these days, but back then it was much rarer.

One of Scott's favorite ever comics was James Robinson's Starman, which he did a multi-part deep dive on, and he made it sound so good and so much to my taste, than when DC released the six-volume Starman Omnibus set a couple years later, I blind-bought the entire run as it came out. These days, the giant hardcover omnibus that reprints everything in order is a common format, but back then it was brand new; in fact, I am pretty sure that Starman was only DC's second foray into it, following the Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus. If you read Reddit's "OmnibusCollectors" sub, you will see lots of people who blind buy stuff they don't actually like based on hype, but I like to think I am actually very good at it, and I loved the run; I even got my wife to read it, and she enjoyed it too. My reviews of it from the time are all posted here on this blog.

One of the things that Robinson was very good at was pulling strands of the DC universe together. Though Robinson's Starman, Jack Knight, was the son of the original Starman, Ted Knight, DC had actually published several unrelated Starman characters between the two. Robinson didn't ignore these, but worked them into his story. I've long been curious about the original appearances of those Starmen: Mikaal Tomas, Prince Gavyn, and Will Payton. So my next comics project is to read the back issues about those other Starman characters, and then reread the James Robinson run, with both those original stories, not to mention twenty years of further comics reading, to inform my understanding. (For example, Starman is heavily connected to the Justice Society mythos, something I knew little about when I originally read it, but now know far too much about!)

Back when I added them to my list of things to check out, the stories of Mikaal and Gavyn were both uncollected, and though they have been collected since, I've still elected to pick up their original publications, since the collected editions in question have a lot of other material that makes them more expensive than just picking up the back issues. The fourth Starman, Will Payton, has never been collected at all. (I do wonder if this will all get collected in a "DC Finest" someday and how it will be handled if so. A DC Finest is typically 500-650 pages long... all of the 1970s Starman content totals less than 150 pages. Would they collect it alongside either the end of Golden Age run, or the beginning of the late 1980s run? It will be a weird collection either way.)

---

So the first post–Golden Age Starman revival was in the pages of DC's 1st Issue Special, a thirteen-issue series where every issue was the "first issue" of a potential run. In most cases, however, the hypothetical run never materialized, and Starman was no exception. Until James Robinson brought him back two decades later, this remained the only outing for this version of Starman.

This Starman is Mikaal Tomas, who is a blue-skinned alien from space. (The lettercol implies he could be from the same planet as Shadow Lass of the Legion of Super-Heroes.) It's the 1970s, and disco and David Bowie are popular, so he wears a shirt with a plunging neckline and a gold medallion. I feel like I often hear this version of the character referred to somewhat dismissively as the "disco Starman"...

...but that must be by people who have not actually read the comic, who have just seen pictures of the character, because this is excellent. Seriously, this isn't high art, but I thought it was masterfully put together. The creative team here is an all-star one: Gerry Conway (Steel, the Indestructible Man, Sun Devils), Mike Vosburg (Starfire), and Mike Royer (Fourth World, Kamandi) were all probably at their heights when they assembled to do this.

If only you didn't suck, Mikaal!

Basically, in eighteen pages, this story does exactly what a good first issue ought to do. Efficiently and effectively, Gerry and the Mikes give us a clear premise and a number of drivers of future conflict. Mikaal comes from a planet whose inhabitants intend to invade the Earth; both he and his girlfriend think this is wrong... but only his girlfriend is willing to do anything about it, and she dies in the attempt. This spurs him to travel to Earth to try to protect its people, only his spaceship crash lands, injuring him. He is rescued by a grocery store owner; meanwhile, a pair of cops investigate his crashed ship, and one of them dies... and then he's followed to Earth! 

So we already have a clear cast of characters with some interesting dynamics, especially the cop who thinks that Mikaal's the bad guy. The action is clear and sharp, the exposition is efficient and not heavy handed at all, it ends on an excellent cliffhanger. I get why this was never followed up on (1st Issue Special was cancelled one issue later, and the Wikipedia page on the series quotes an interview with Conway that does a good job of explaining of why it never really worked as a "tryout" book anyway), but it's a shame. I flew through this issue, and I loved reading it.

Presumably this guy and his beef with Mikaal are never heard from again.

I'll be curious to see how much of it James Robinson actually draws on when he brings back Mikaal; I don't remember much beyond the bare fact of his existence!

(Incidentally, there's no indication this is set in the DC universe: the humans in the story certainly don't act like people who are used to superheroes and aliens flying around. Robinson would place the story specifically in the 1970s, not on DC's sliding timescale, so this actually works out, as it's set in the relatively superhero-light period between the retirement of the JSA and the emergence of the JLA.)

"Starman" originally appeared in issue #12 of 1st Issue Special (Mar. 1976). The story was written/edited by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Mike Vosburg & Mike Royer. 

This is the first in a series of posts about Starman. The next covers Adventure Comics #467-78.

Noir Quarterly (anthology, 1994–95)

In order to read one of the Maze Agency prose stories, I picked up the first and only issue of Noir: The Illustrated Crime Fiction Quarterly from Alpha Productions. This actually was not very easy to do: one of those old comics that not so much expensive as unavailable!Published at the comics size, it was mostly made up of detective prose stories with just one comics story, plus a couple nonfiction features. Despite the subtitle and the grand ambitions of editor Christopher Mills (who also edited The Detectives one-shot from Alpha, in which a short Maze Agency comics story appeared), it only lasted one issue. 

Mills later revived the concept under the slightly different title of Noir Quarterly at CFD... though as he admits in a retrospective on his blog, the publication frequency was "way-too-optimistic." There are no Maze Agency stories in those issues, but look—I like collecting interesting and unusual comics, and if tacking two more issues of something onto my order can get me a complete set, then I'll do it. Plus those two issues had beautiful femme fatale–themed covers! (They're both by Brian Stelfreeze, who much much later would be the first artist on Ta-Nehisi Coates's Black Panther run.)

All three issues have similar contents, though not always in the same proportions: predominantly, there are illustrated prose stories, with a couple comics. Most of the material is new, but sometimes there's archival material; one of the comics in Noir Quarterly #1 is from 1955, for example, and a few of the prose stories are reprints, though Mills says he prioritized reprinting stuff that was otherwise uncollected. There are also nonfiction features: book reviews, movie reviews, interviews, and retrospectives on some topic of interest to the audience, like old movies or comics.

from Noir Quarterly #1
(script by Ron Fortier, art by Gary Kato & Steve Crompton)

Like any anthology, the prose stories are hit-or-miss, but there definitely was enough good stuff here to make it all worth reading. Though I was drawn to the series by The Maze Agency, I would say the majority of the prose stories are not detective fiction. Ones I particularly liked included "Surrogate" by Ed Gorman (illustrated by Richard Pace, from Noir vol. 1 #1), where a lawyer confronts the teenager who might be responsible for the death of his own son; "The Love Rack" by Max Allan Collins (illustrated by Blackhawk's Rick Burchett, from Noir vol. 1 #1), a gritty story about a private eye who gets caught in political conspiracy; "A Fine Officer" by C. J. Henderson (illustrated by Michael Harris, from Noir Quarterly #1), where a detective becomes caught in a gang civil war; and "They're Gonna Kill You after a While" by Ron Goulart (from Noir #2), about a detective investigating the disappearance of an actor who once played a Saint-like character in a series of films. This last story was illustrated by Brian Michael Bendis of all people; I had no idea he was also an illustrator! Of the ones I liked, only this last one was a mystery.

I don't read much "noir"; having gotten this sampling, I think what I don't like are ones that seem a bit... gratuitous. I don't mind cynicism, but sometimes it moves over into crassness. I didn't care for "Fool's Gold" by William Marden (illustrated by Darren Goodhart, from Noir vol. 1 #1), which goes on a long time for a mediocre ending, during which you have to read a lot about men ogling a teenage girl. Particularly bad, I thought, were two stories from Noir #2: "Granny Gumption Solves a Murder" by C. J. Henderson & Charles Hoffman (illustrated by Michael Harris) and "The Wallow" by Ardath Mayhar (illustrated by Delfin Barral). The former has a decent joke at its core, about Miss Marple–type characters, but then gets nasty; the latter is pretty obvious from its very beginning but takes a long time to get there.

from Noir: The Illustrated Crime Fiction Quarterly #1
(script by Nicola Cuti, art by Joe Staton)

The amount of comics content varies heavily. Nicola Cuti and Joe Staton's Michael Mauser character appears in both Noir vol. 1 #1 and vol. 2 #2 (he also appeared in the Detectives one-shot). I like the Joe Staton art, of course, but I think the first story suffered from the fact that I have read no other stories about the character than these three: when his brother popped up as part of a solution to a mystery, it was a bit jarring as there was no previous hint he had a brother! But I would read more about this guy. That's the only comics story in vol. 1 #1, but Noir Quarterly #2 has two: a mediocre Johnny Dynamite reprint from 1955, plus a new story by Ron Fortier with art by Gary Kato & Steve Crompton. This same team also supply one of Noir #2's three comic stories, and Ron Fortier scripts another story for issue #2 with art by Randy Buccini & Byron Peneranda. I don't think any of these are high art, but I do think everyone involved very much understood the assignment, and I enjoyed all of them. My favorite was probably the one in Noir Quarterly #1, "Blood Red Lips," about a dangerous femme fatale with a twist.

I did find the nonfiction features pretty interesting, though there were too many of them in Noir #2. This is a whole world I don't know very much, and since I will probably never have enough time in my life to delve into more deeply, I appreciate how other people can give me access. The book reviews were usually interesting enough, but things I particularly enjoyed included the interview with Mickey Spillane by Mills from Noir Quarterly #1 (I've never read any of his work, but he seems fascinating) and the overview of The Saint and Falcon films by Ed Gorman from Noir #2 (what a weird production history... though my guess more interesting to read about than to watch the actual films).

Overall, this was a decent package, though I did find Mills's editorial voice a bit grating at times. Not always great work here, but distinctive and interesting, a nice teaser into a wider world I am unlikely to delve more into, to be honest, but I am glad I tracked down and read it all!

Noir: The Illustrated Crime Fiction Quarterly vol. 1 originally appeared in one issue (Winter 1994). The stories were written Ed Gorman, Wendi Lee, Mike W. Barr, Nicola Cuti, William Marden, and Max Allan Collins, and illustrated by Richard Pace, Terry Beatty, Rick Magyar, Joe Staton, Darren Goodhart, and Rick Burchett, with nonfiction features by Jeff Gelb, Eric Davidson, and Christopher Mills. The series was edited by Christopher Mills.

Noir [Quarterly] vol. 2* originally appeared in two issues (Apr.-Fall 1995). The stories were written by Joe Gill,† William F. Nolan, Robert J. Randisi, William Marden, Ron Fortier, C. J. Henderson (with Charles Hoffman), Nicola Cuti, Ardath Mayhar, and Ron Goulart, and illustrated by Bill Molno & Vince Alascia,† Rick Burchett, Flint Henry, Bob Cram, Jr., Gary Kato & Steve Crompton, Michael Harris, Joe Staton, Mike Harris, Delfin Barral, Brian Michael Bendis, and Randy Buccini & Byron Peneranda, with nonfiction features by Ron Fortier, Christopher Mills, Eric Davidson, Jonathan Anger, Bill Spangler, James Chambers, and Ed Gorman. The series was edited by Christopher Mills. 

* The first issue was titled Noir Quarterly, the second just Noir.

† The Johnny Dynamite story "The Fixer's Mob" (a reprint from 1955) is not credited in the issue; credits courtesy the Grand Comics Database.

The Maze Agency: "The Adventure of the Chinese Dissident" and Other Stories by Mike W. Barr et al.

Somewhat belatedly—I think while writing up the previous post in this sequence—I discovered that there were actually three Maze Agency short stories that had been published outside of the regular Maze Agency comic series. One was a comic story published in a one-shot from Alpha Productions called The Detectives; the other two were prose stories, which could be found in an installment of the quarterly series Noir (a mix of comics and prose) and an anthology called Sex, Lies and Private Eyes. So I tracked them down to cap off this series. (When the hypothetical Maze Agency omnibus is released, hopefully it will include them all.)

The comic story in Detectives #1 (which has a cover by original Maze Agency ongoing artist Adam Hughes), "The Adventure of the Chinese Dissident," is just ten pages, and so can't be as complicated as most Maze Agency stories, but is pretty good regardless. Its main downside is that you only get any clues at all about a page before it's all revealed, so there's not really a chance to "play along" as the reader... but it's not like I was ever going to do that successfully in any case! Paul Pelletier is a solid artist here (I mostly know him from small bits and bobs on series like The Darkstars or Blue and Gold), and I would have gladly seen more Maze Agency from him.

The other two are, like I said, prose stories. It's weird when characters originated in comics make the jump to prose, in my opinion; I think a lot of time there's a kind of flatness. Comics tell you interiority through  mostly external cues, especially in a series like The Maze Agency, which has no narration. I spent some time reading a bunch of superhero-comics-turned-prose-stories, and I found it was hard to imagine a lot of superhero characters as actually having vivid interior lives—not just for me, but obviously for the writers! Mike Barr isn't inexperienced in prose (I actually read a couple of his prose Star Trek works two decades ago now), but he doesn't really go for interiority at all here: the narrator is distant from Jen and Gabe. This can work in a detective story, but it did make me feel like these weren't really playing to the strengths of the medium.

from Noir: The Illustrated Crime Fiction Quarterly #1

Weirdly, both "The Heat Is On" and "Murder Gone Wylde" are about pornography: the former about an adult video store, and the latter about a producer of porn DVDs. I found "The Heat Is On" had a good sense of atmosphere that worked well, but the actual mystery was slight; "Murder Gone Wylde" has an engaging set of characters and suspects, and was a lot of fun... unfortunately, I think it might have been even more fun as an actual comic! Still, as one last way to spend time with Jen and Gabe (and Lieutenant Bliss, etc.), you could do a lot worse. Did Barr ever write any original mystery novels? I feel like he could have done good things with that canvas.

"The Adventure of the Chinese Dissident" originally appeared in issue #1 of The Detectives (Apr. 1993). The story was written by Mike W. Barr, pencilled by Paul Pelletier, inked by Bob Cram Jr., lettered by Susan Dorne, and edited by Christopher Mills. 

"The Heat Is On" originally appeared in issue #1 of Noir: The Illustrated Crime Fiction Quarterly (Winter 1994). The story was written Mike W. Barr, illustrated by Rick Magyar, and edited by Christopher Mills. 

"Murder Gone Wylde" originally appeared in Sex, Lies and Private Eyes (2009). The story was written by Mike W. Barr and edited by Joe Gentile and Richard Dean Starr.

This is the last in a series of posts about Mike W. Barr's The Maze Agency. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Maze Agency vol. 1 #1-5 (1988-90)
2. The Maze Agency vol. 1 #6-23 (1989-91)
3. The Maze Agency vol. 2 #1-3 (1997-98)
4. The Maze Agency vol. 3 #1-3 & vol. 4 #1 (2005-23)

Two related posts cover Noir Quarterly and Sex, Lies and Private Eyes.

The Maze Agency: "A Beautiful Crime" and Other Stories by Mike W. Barr, Ariel Padilla, Ernest Jocson, et al.

Almost a decade after its first revival (see item #3 on the list below), Mike W. Barr's The Maze Agency was revived again, for a second three-issue miniseries, this time from IDW. (The revival was accompanied by a new collection of volume 1's first five issues, see item #1 below; I have also seen some evidence that ISBNs were assigned for more collections, but none of those were ever published.)

I found these three issues more of a mixed bag than the previous revival from Caliber. I think there were two reasons: one avoidable, and one perhaps unavoidable.

First, the avoidable one. I didn't find any of the stories among these three as well put together as the ones in the previous two runs of The Maze Agency. Maze Agency stories were always complicated, sure—I imagine there's very rarely a fair-play whodunit that isn't—but these usually verged into overcomplicated. The reader might very often lose track of things... but probably the one thing that should never happen in a whodunit is that the reader loses track of the suspects. But in all of these stories, especially the first and the third, I found that was exactly was what happened. Two many characters, and when the murderer was revealed, I wasn't quite sure I remembered who they were.

Probably part of the problem there is not the writing, but the art: the IDW stories are all penciled by Ariel Padilla, and I didn't think he had the command of making unique faces necessary to pulling off the complex character work of a murder mystery. Sure, not everyone can be Adam Hughes, but almost all of his many replacements in the original run still managed to do it. The glossy mid-2000s coloring techniques probably don't help either. In particular, issues #2 and 3 have lots of characters—beauty pageant participants and two distinct Japanese families, respectively—and if you can't tell them all apart, you'll very quickly be lost. I wish a stronger artist had been found to bring back The Maze Agency.

from The Maze Agency vol. 3 #2

The other reason, though, was probably unavoidable. The pleasure of the original Maze Agency wasn't just the whodunits, it was being with Jen and Gabe as their relationship evolved and developed. The series moved forward in real time; its two years of comics covered two years of their lives.

Volume 3 of The Maze Agency was published fifteen years after the last issue of volume 1...  yet the characters have clearly not aged fifteen years. Nor, however, are we picking up shortly after where we left off; these are not early 1990s period pieces, either. In true "comic book time" fashion, the fashions and the technology indicate this is the mid-2000s, but Jen and Gabe are where we left them. Or, even worse, regressed a little: one of the stories indicates Gabe has his own apartment, but he actually moved in with Jen during the original run. There probably was not a good solution to this dilemma, but I find it disappointing nonetheless. (I think, though, I would have done what Sue Grafton did in the Kinsey Millhone books partway though, and transformed them into period pieces. For one thing, the fashions of the late 1980s and early 1990s are much better than the generic mid-2000s stuff Jen is wearing here. She even lost her forelock!)

from The Maze Agency vol. 3 #3

What I think of as the "modern" revival of The Maze Agency actually isn't all that modern—depressingly, it's closer to the series's original run than it is to the present! However, there was one last Maze Agency revival just a couple years ago, from Scout Comics... which lasted just one issue! I was able to find a press release about the Scout revival but no interviews or anything; certainly, the fanfare with which it was announced seems to indicate it wasn't planned as a one-shot, but no further issues were solicited or anything.

Anyway, it's fine. The twists of the mystery are interesting enough, and there are some good bits of humor in it. Unfortunately, it's let down by the art: all of Silvano Beltramo's women basically have the same face, and he's also the colorist, and occasionally gives Jen reddish-blond hair (matching one of the suspects) instead of blond, so I often had to reread dialogue to figure out which woman was Jen! I do appreciate they got Alan Davis back to do one of the covers; I think it was originally a 1:5 incentive cover, but it wasn't any more expensive than the regular cover online.

from The Maze Agency vol. 4 #1

The Scout Comics one-shot seems to be it for The Maze Agency; I believe it was Mike Barr's last-ever published comics work, and he's now having health problems, alas. If you liked the core series, these later revivals don't quite recapture its glory days, but are still worth tracking down.

Volume 3 of The Maze Agency originally appeared in three issues, from Nov. 2005 to Jan. 2006. The stories were written by Mike W. Barr, penciled by Ariel Padilla, inked by Ernest Jocson (#1-2) and Michael Jason Paz (#3), lettered by Tom B. Long, colored by Rainier Beredo (#1, 3) and Romulo Fajardo Jr. (#2), and edited by Dan Taylor.

"Shriek: The Sequel!" originally appeared in issue #1 of The Maze Agency vol. 4 (Dec. 2023). The story was written by Mike W. Barr, illustrated and colored by Silvano Beltramo, lettered by Tyler Smith, and edited by Andrea Lorenzo Molinari.

This is the penultimate in a series of posts about Mike W. Barr's The Maze Agency. The next covers the short stories. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Maze Agency vol. 1 #1-5 (1988-90)
2. The Maze Agency vol. 1 #6-23 (1989-91)
3. The Maze Agency vol. 2 #1-3 (1997-98)

The Maze Agency: "The Death of Justice Girl" and Other Stories by Mike W. Barr, Gene Gonzales, et al.

Mike Barr's "fair-play whodunit" comic series The Maze Agency (see my two posts linked below for more detail on its original run) has been revived several times since the end of its original run in 1991. The first of these revivals was a three-issue black-and-white miniseries from indie publisher Caliber Comics in the late 1990s. Picking up the first two of these isn't that hard, but the third issue often goes for silly money on the secondary market—I think because Adam Hughes drew one its two covers, though even the cover he didn't draw can still go for a lot for some reason. (Automated bot pricing?) Thankfully MyComicShop posted a $3 copy of the non-Hughes cover while I was engaged in some futile eBay bidding. (Like, it wasn't there when I started looking for it, hence me going to eBay to begin with, but then I went back a few days later and it was!)

The Caliber run consists of three done-in-one murder mysteries, of course: in #1, Jen and Gabe investigate the death of the actress who played Justice Girl decades ago in a film; in #2, they travel to a Catholic monastery to locate a vital witness for a mob case, and in #3, they are confounded when three different women all turn up claiming to be a model who hasn't been seen in public for decades. They are all solid mysteries of the type Barr perfected in the original Maze Agency run, though I found all the characters and clues in #3 (each potential model also has associated side characters) hard to keep track of. On the other hand, I liked #2 a lot; a large cast of suspects, but they are distinctive, so you can keep track of them all fairly easily, and some nice twists.

from The Maze Agency vol. 2 #2

I'm assuming running the series in black and white was a cost-cutting decision, not an artistic one. Certainly, issues #1 and 3 seem to have been drawn much as anyone would draw a color comic. However, issue #2 feels like it was designed to run in black and white: lots of shadows in the monastery, lots of dark brickwork. Overall, I found it moody and effective. If someone (hypothetically) created a Maze Agency Omnibus, I'd probably want to see issues #1 and 3 colored, but I think coloring #2 would diminish its effect.

Overall, Gene Gonzales is an effective penciller, capturing the likenesses of our leads; he does the first two issues and the first half of the third. Unfortunately, the second half of #3 is done by a different artist with a style that seems both rushed and inappropriately cartoony... and having your characters change physical appearance halfway through an issue is especially detrimental to a murder mystery!

Volume 2 of The Maze Agency originally appeared in three issues, from July 1997 to Apr. 1998.* The stories were written by Mike W. Barr; pencilled by Gene Gonzales (#1-3) and James Bible (#3); inked by David Rowe (#1), Ande Parks (#2), Jason Baumgartner (#2-3), and Larry Shuput (#3); and edited by Joe Pruett (#1-3) and James Pruett (#3).

This is the antepenultimate in a series of posts about Mike W. Barr's The Maze Agency. The next covers volumes 3 and 4 from IDW and Scout. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Maze Agency vol. 1 #1-5 (1988-90)
2. The Maze Agency vol. 1 #6-23 (1989-91) 

* The indicia dates on issues #2 and 3 are both just "1998," no month given. Some Internet sources give the months as Jan. and Feb. 1998, respectively, but I think this is just arbitrarily placing the issues in the two earliest slots in 1998. John Jackson Miller's Comichron includes issues #2 and 3 on his sales charts for Feb. and Apr. 1998, and given that issue #1 appears on the sales chart for July 1997, we can infer that Caliber was one of those publishers where the indicia date matches the sales month.

"Meet Jennifer Mays, New York's prettiest detective, and Gabriel Webb, amateur sleuth and true crime writer, in another fair-play whodunit -- challenging you to solve the mystery as it unfolds!": The Maze Agency #6–23

The first four or five issues of The Maze Agency have been collected two or three times, by my reckoning. However, the original series ran twenty-three issues plus an annual and a special, and aside from one story from the annual and one from the special, none of that material has ever been collected. But it is all available on the secondary market for pretty reasonable prices.

Interestingly, the series was cancelled by publisher Comico after June 1989's issue #7, but the series was picked up by Innovation Comics... even continuing the numbering with December 1989's issue #8! (Issue #8 credits Comico editor Michael Eury, so I'd guess the issue was originally prepared for them.) If you're trying to read it all in order, note that special #1 was published between issues #12 and 13, and annual #1 between issues #15 and 16. It is very clear that the comic struggled in the comics market of the 1980s and '90s; it had acclaim, but never a wide audience. (It probably doesn't help that once Adam Hughes gets snapped up to draw JLA, the series never really has a regular penciller again; Hughes draws #8, 9, and 12; the other fifteen issues of the regular series feature eleven different pencillers.)

If you've read the first five issues, how these ones unfold won't be a big surprise to you: every issue features a done-in-one murder mystery when Jen and Gabe solve the crime. Supposedly they are all "fair-play whodunits," meaning the reader can look at all the clues and solve the mystery too. I didn't really attempt to do this because, though I enjoy reading them, I am not "good" at murder mysteries. Only one time, with issue #11's "…Twas the Crime Before Christmas…" (pencils by Robb Phipps), did I even come close, thanks to a very obvious clue about color blindness. In some stories, the explanations can get pretty convoluted, but that's all part of the genre in my experience; you've just got to roll with it. (I found #9's "The English Channeler Mystery: A Problem In Deduction" particularly far-fetched; I must not have been the only one, because someone actually writes into the lettercol with a completely different solution, claiming it fits all the facts, though writer Mike Barr disagrees. I also thought the "clues" in the one about a group of authors being murdered, #16's "If Books Could Kill…", beggared belief, though all the book stuff was quite fun.)

But when it hits, it hits. These are almost never not pleasurable in the way that murder mysteries ought to be pleasurable: fun characters, including some engaging cops for our leads to interact with, enjoyable pulling together of threads and ideas. I particularly enjoyed the aforementioned Christmas story in #11; the one where Jen's police ally herself becomes a suspect, #15's "Too Much Bliss" (art by Mike Okamoto, Mike Witherby, and Rick Magyar); and the one about a homophobic serial killer, #21's "Valentine's Slay." Surely the best of all, though, was issue #14's "Before Midnight" (pencils by Robb Phipps), where a death-row inmate who Jen helped put away is murdered just before his execution. Really tense and clever and well put together.

And though, as I said, the series never regains a regular penciller, there's still some solid artwork across these issues. I particularly liked Mary Mitchell's pencils on issues #16 and 21. (Alas, it doesn't seem like she had much of a subsequent career; her last credited work on League of Comic Geeks is a ten-page story in Marvel Valentine Special #1 from 1997.) I was also pleased to see some early-career work from Rob Davis on #19, who went on to do some excellent art and writing for Doctor Who Magazine from 2007 to 2011. Rick Magyar does most of the inks from issue #8 to 14, which helps maintain consistency, and he's definitely good value.

I only have two real complaints about this run. The first is that it stretches credulity for me when people investigate murders professionally just happen to encounter a murder mystery. I get this is a feature of the genre, but it gets overused a bit: in #6, Jen and Gabe go on vacation and encounter a murder, then in #7, they go to visit Jen's parents and encounter a murder, and then in #8 there's a murder in Gabe's apartment building. Quite a run there! Similarly, issues #16, 17, and 19 all feature murders they just happen to bump into, rather than ones Jen is hired to solve. It's a device that needs to be used more sparingly.

The other is that I felt like in the earlier issues Barr was setting up some stuff about how the two of them met that never gets paid off. A lot of the early issues revolve around Gabe wanted more of a relationship while Jen is reluctant, and I really enjoyed seeming them slowly grow closer together. But it seemed like the early issues implied there was a bit of a story there, and we never get to hear it. Also there's a lot of focus on Jen's family... but what about Gabe's? (Maybe I just wanted a story set in Ohio.)

The special and the annual are also good stuff. Special #1 sees Jen and Gabe solve three murders in one day, each one drawn by a different artist. I particularly liked the one based around Jen's haircut, "Afternoon: Murder by a Hair," one of the only times Rick Magyar provides pencils. Annual #1 is mostly a Spirit tribute (art by Rick Magyar, Darick Robertson, & Wm. Messner-Loebs); I haven't read any Spirit, but the stylistic diversion is enjoyable. 

All that said... if you like well-constructed comics and fun characters, this is definitely a highlight of the medium and the genre. It's a shame no one has ever crowdfunded some kind of definitive omnibus collection, but they're worth tracking down for sure. 

This is the second in a series of posts about Mike W. Barr's The Maze Agency. The next covers volume 2 from Caliber. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Maze Agency vol. 1 #1-5 (1988-90)

Star Wars: Tales from the Clone Wars Seasons 2–3 by Pablo Hidalgo, Thomas Hodges, et al.

The official Clone Wars webcomic continued to run through the end of the show's third season. While the installments for the first season were one-off prequels to episodes, the installments for the later seasons told a multi-part story in fifteen installments, set in parallel to the events of the show. Frustratingly, the webcomics from these seasons have never been collected even though they read much better on their own! Thankfully, though, they're still out there if you know where to look, and after finishing the season one webcomic collection, I went on to the later seasons.

The story for season two is Act on Instinct. Its main character is Tyzen Xebec, a Jedi padawan whose master is killed; Tyzen is assigned to a new Jedi master, Keelvine Reus. The other key characters are Ganch, the clone who commands the squad assigned to Tyzen, and Sanya, a member of the Jedi Agricultural Corps. (Various tv characters pop up here and there; Ahsoka tries to console a grieving Tyzen, for example.) Keelyvine and Tyzen are sent to defend the planet Ukio from the Separatists. Shenanigans of course ensue.

The story is fine. It's mostly action-focused; a character arc suggested at the beginning, about Tyzen and Keelyvine learning to adjust to one another, largely doesn't play out, since the two characters are separated for most of the Battle of Ukio. There's a lot of Star Wars goofiness, but it's decently well done. The story is definitely harmed, though, by the very variable art. It's jarring to have the art style change every five pages or so, but even worse is that some of the four artists are very much better than others. I think Thomas Hodges is most consistent. Some of the others' work frankly comes across as amateur hour.

The third season story is The Valsedian Operation. Thankfully, the art is all by Tom Hodges this time; thankfully also, the story keeps Keelyvine and Tyzen together. The master and padawan work together with Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka to investigate a Separatist intrusion in Hutt space; meanwhile, Sanya is on Coruscant with Ganch, looking into sabotage. Unfortunately, the Hutt plotline isn't very interesting and I wish there was more stuff between Keelyvine and Tyzen again. The stuff with Sanya is more interesting, letting us see a different side to the clone army, though I wish it had been fleshed out more; the "Republic Service Organization" comes across as just "the USO... but in space!", not a thought-through organization in its own right.

That said, Keelyvine Reus is a great character in the Boba Fett mold: less about anything she actually says or does, and more just great visual design. Dig that coordinated green tunic, green lipstick, and green eyeshadow! It's too bad these two stories are her only appearances, I would have liked to have seen more of her.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Act on Instinct originally appeared on StarWars.com in fifteen chapters (30 Sept. 2009–7 May 2010). The story was written by Pablo Hidalgo; illustrated by Thomas Hodges, Grant Gould, Jeff Carlisle, and Daniel Falconer; and lettered by Grant Gould.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Valsedian Operation originally appeared on StarWars.com in fifteen chapters (14 Sept. 2010–29 Apr. 2011). The story and art were by Thomas Hodges, with scripts by Pablo Hidalgo and colors and letters by Grant Gould.

Justice League International: The Later Years, Part I: Formerly Known as the Justice League / I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League

So there have been a number of revivals of the JLI premise over the years. The ones I know of are:

• The original creative team of Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire returned for two miniseries in the 2000s.
• There was a biweekly Justice League: Generation Lost series in the 2010s, mostly using JLI characters.
• A short-lived Justice League International series ran as part of the "New 52" initiative.
• Giffen and DeMatteis teamed up for a Justice League 3000 series (later 3001) with a similar tone to their JLI run, and some cameos as well.
• The 2020s have seen a couple minis focused on JLI alums: Blue & Gold and Fire & Ice. 

But if I were to read all of these, this project—already quite long!—might never end. So I am going to focus on the ones that particularly interest me. That would be the 2000s minis, of course, but also the more recent revivals. Maybe later I'll tackle Generation Lost, the New 52 JLI, and the JL3000/01 series.

This post covers the 2000s revivals. In addition to those two minis, I've picked up a couple single issues of interest to me. 

from JLA Showcase 80-Page Giant #1

"The Flashback of Notre Dame", from JLA Showcase 80-Page Giant #1 (Feb. 2000)
written by Greg Weisman, pencilled by Christopher Jones, inked by Mark Stegbauer, colored by Gene D'Angelo, lettered by Kurt Hathaway

Mostly I have read "continuity insert" stories by when they take place, not by when they were published, but I didn't discover this one until it was too late to do so; it's not included in the JLI International Omnibus volumes, nor is it even mentioned on the Cosmic Teams timeline. I think I discovered it when I looked up the JLE on Wikipedia. It's a JLE story, set between issues #21 and 22 of that title; Blue Jay is a member (he joined after The Extremist Vector, which finished in #21) and the JLE is still based in Paris (the Paris embassy was destroyed in #22). In fact, this story has Kilowog tinkering with the teleporter systems, which he was doing at the beginning of #22, so writer Greg Weisman clearly did his homework when it came to placement.

Anyway, this is a pretty short story about Captain Atom taking his fiancée on a trip to Paris... and of course things get zany, as they always do around the JLE. Specifically, he's attacked by gargoyles come to life, but it's all a misunderstanding that could have been avoided if he just spoke French! (As was constantly bemoaned in JLE.) It's fine enough, but surprisingly it's not very friendly to someone who primary knows Captain Atom primarily from his JLI appearances. Why is he called "Cameron Stewart" here, not "Nathaniel Adam"? I didn't even know he had a fiancée—in JLE, he was always flirting with Catherine Cobert!

from Batman: Gotham Knights #41

"Rubber Soul", from Batman: Gotham Knights #41 (July 2003)
written by Scott Beatty, art by Toby Cypress, lettered by Janice Chiang, colored by Noelle Giddings

I'm certainly not going around picking up every post-JLI appearance by a JLI character, but when researching when Elongated Man and Batman originally teamed up (as referenced in The Teasdale Imperative, see item #4 in the list below), I read an article that made this later Elongated Man/Batman teamup sound quite interesting... and Elongated Man is of course my favorite DC superhero.

The premise of this story is that Sue Dibny is visiting Gotham on a tour promoting the release of her latest mystery novel, husband Ralph in tow, when they're approached by Bruce Wayne in his "Matches Malone" criminal persona, who is looking for insight into a series of grotesque deaths happening in Gotham. They're not linked to Ralph's gingold—but once Ralph smells a mystery, he's staying involved anyway... and how couldn't a bestselling mystery author be of use too? (When was Sue Dibny established as a mystery novelist, anyway? Was that Starman? Been a long time since I read that.)

The story is a fun one; I love it when Batman screws with his former JLI comrades by giving them hints of his sense of humor, and writer Scott Beatty does a great job capturing both Ralph and Sue. Ralph is fun loving but serious about his work; Sue is cleverer than either man when it counts. Lots of good gags. The art by Toby Cypress is sometimes a bit hard to decipher but overall suitably atmospheric This book was very clearly part of a Ralph-and-Sue renaissance of the 2000s... alas, cut short by the events of Identity Crisis. Well worth tracking down if you're an Elongated Man fan.

from Formerly Known as the Justice League #4

"A[nother] New Beginning" / "Déjà Vu All Over Again" / "Dead Man's Hand" / "The Wrath of Manga Khan" / "A League of Their Own", from Formerly Known as the Justice League #1-6 (Sept. 2003–Feb. 2004), reprinted in Formerly Known as the Justice League (2004)
written by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, pencilled by Kevin Maguire, inked by Joe Rubinstein, lettered by Bob Lappan, colored by Lee Loughridge

The first JLI revival mini sees Maxwell Lord deciding to resurrect the JLI... sort of. With the high-profile, moon-based JLA in full swing, he decides what people need is a more accessible superhero team, and so recruits some of the has-beens from the old JLI team to populate his new "Super-Buddies": Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Elongated Man, Fire, and Captain Atom, plus L-RON to once again handle administrative duties. (I don't know when L-RON stopped being house in Despero's body, as he was back in Justice League Task Force.) Captain Marvel turns down Max's offer to join up, not looking back on his JLI membership with fondness, but his sister Mary Marvel is intrigued enough to take his place.

While Giffen & DeMatteis's original run could get quite funny at times, it was also very character-based and sometimes quite serious. This reunion series isn't going for that vibe; it's all in on the comedy. There's lots of banter here, lots of back-and-forth between the characters, lots of bickering. Which is fine, because it's so very successful! I was laughing at least once per page, if not more, especially in the first couple issues, where Max and L-RON are putting the team back together. L-RON working fast food, Captain Atom's horrible new appearance, Booster's new marriage, it's all grist for the mill, and I'm sure my wife thought I was even crazier than normal given how much I was laughing. This is all enhanced by the absurd situations the new Super-Buddies end up in; I particularly liked the group of Harvard students who became incredibly dignified street hoodlums!

Reunions are always a touchy business; most of the time, you're left thinking maybe we should have just left the original. But as Max and L-RON went around reassembling the team, I felt the nostalgia wash over me. I know I read this group's original adventures just a couple months ago, but it was so delightful to see them all again just as they were in the old days!

from Formerly Known as the Justice League #6

The diversion into Roulette capturing the Super-Buddies isn't quite as funny but still entertaining; certainly it's the most interesting Routlette appearance I can ever remember reading. Things reach a suitably comic and epic climax when Lord Manga Khan of the Cluster returns to recover L-RON. Is he going to destroy the Earth... or is he just bluffing? And will the real JLA intervene when things get out of hand? Again, lots of good jokes here, especially Max's ineffectiveness, Booster and Beetle's bickering, Batman's forays into humor, Beetle reaching out to Oracle for help, J'onn's embarrassment at having led the JLI, and Plastic Man's skepticism over Elongated Man.

I think this is one of those books that totally and precisely accomplishes what it sets out to do, and thus I feel a bit churlish complaining. But I do have two nits. One, I did sometimes feel the bickering was turned up a bit too much; this people liked each other... right? In particular, I wasn't sure why Bea was so rude to Max (and vice versa), with whom I felt she had a particularly good relationship back in the day. (See, for example, Justice League Quarterly #8 in item #10 below.) The other is that the book plays continuity a little loose, kind-of-ignoring-but-not-totally things that happened to these characters after the original Giffen/DeMatteis run. For example, Max is a cyborg here (I think this comes from the Gerard Jones JLA run, which I skipped), but Wonder Woman doesn't seem to know Booster, Beetle, or Fire... even though she led the JLA when they were on it (during the Jurgens and Vado runs)! I think in both cases it comes down to the writers picking whatever they think will be funniest, and the bit when Wonder Woman doesn't get why Fire doesn't like her is funny, but it did jar to read this so shortly after the Jurgens and Vado runs.

from JLA Classified #5

I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League, from JLA Classified #4-9 (Apr.-Late Aug. 2005), reprinted in Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 3 (2024)
written by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, pencilled by Kevin Maguire, inked by Joe Rubinstein, lettered by Bob Lappan, colored by David Baron

This story came out after Identity Crisis, but is clearly set before it; it would be last hurrah for these characters. (Shortly after this, I suppose, Sue Dibny and Ted Kord would both be brutally murdered; the latter by Max Lord in a moment of character assassination. Oh, and then Max would be killed by Wonder Woman. Though the closing caption says they all lived happily ever after, so perhaps in Giffen & DeMatteis's minds, Identity Crisis and Countdown to Infinite Crisis just didn't happen.)

We get a second run of the reunion here; as they say, "Second verse, same as the first: a little bit louder and a little bit worse!" Which is to say, I enjoyed this just fine but not as much as its immediate precessor, which had a much better hit rate when it came to the jokes. I don't think anything here was bad per se, but I was definitely not laughing as much as I did in the first book. It has its moments: it was fun to see Guy and Kara again, in particular. The foray into the dark parallel universe felt like the weakest part, though it was nice when the characters finally pulled together at the end. Honestly, I wanted more of the Super-Buddies in the real world, which is when I think they're at their strongest.

from JLA Classified #9

Still, the story did rectify one of the problems I had with the previous one; we get some more serious character moments and references to the Vado run all in one! When the Super-Buddies end up in Hell (or is it?), they encounter the dead soul of Ice. Guy and Fire are desperate to get her out of the underworld, but in a classic Orpheus moment, Fire looks back and Ice vanishes. It's totally in character and totally devastating, a really well done moment from the whole creative team.

Reading these reunion stories made me a bit surprised that there hasn't been a more recent attempt to revive the JLI (or, perhaps, a JLI show). Surely its character-based workplace humor is totally the vibe Millennials love! Market it as a DC version of Parks and Rec, c'mon! Obviously I'd buy it.

This is the antepenultimate in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers Blue and Gold and Fire & Ice. 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)

Justice League International Year Eight, Part II: Judgment Day (JLA #89-92 / JLI #65-68 / JLTF #13-16)

Finally, at last, we come to the end of the Justice League's pre-Zero Hour run... and thus the end of my continuous reading; from here I'll be jumping ahead a bit. Here we have the final issues of Justice League International and Justice League Quarterly, as both series were cancelled with Zero Hour. (The JLI lettercol indicates more issues of JLQ were planned, though; it mentions an all–Tasmanian Devil issue by David De Vries and Kiki Chansamone which never happened.)

The Justice League did continue from this point, with JLI-era characters in its roster still like Booster Gold and Fire... but nothing I've seen or read of this era is even remotely appealing. As far as I can tell, Justice League America continued to lean  further into the "extreme" 1990s aesthetic, and of course, it was paired with Extreme Justice, which was surely even moreso. I could barely stomach the last year or so of JLA; I don't need more of this.

(Christopher Priest did take over on Justice League Task Force, which seems interesting, but I'll save reading that for another time.) 

Reading this era in order is pretty straightforward. Mostly the three series rotate between each other, one issue leading into the next. The only time there's not a direct continuation is between JLA #91 and JLI #15, so that's where I recommend reading the last two issues of JLQ.

from Justice League Task Force #14

Judgment Day / "Heroes Passage", from Justice League America #89-90, Justice League Task Force #13-14, & Justice League International vol. 2 #65-66 (June-July 1994) and Justice League America #91 (Aug. 1994), reprinted in Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 (2017)
written by Dan Vado, Mark Waid, and Gerard Jones; pencils by Marc Campos, Sal Velluto, and Chuck Wojtkiewicz; inks by Ken Branch, Jeff Albrecht, and Bob Dvorak (with Robert Jones & Rich Rankin); letters by Clem Robins, Bob Pinaha, and Kevin Cunningham; colors by Gene D'Angelo and Glenn Whitmore

Judgment Day was a six-part story that rotated through all three Justice League monthlies: the American branch, international branch, and Task Force all teamed up to deal with a world-threatening menace. This is the Overmaster. Unsurprisingly, this story has all the negatives of all the recent stories from all three titles: bad art, especially by Marc Campos, over-the-top melodrama, incoherent plotting. Much of the story is never really explained. What is the connection between this Overmaster and the one that threatened the Detroit-era League? How did he cause all the disasters around the Earth before he even got there? Why was he going around empowering random people? Why doesn't he just destroy the Earth right away instead of imposing this countdown?

There are some nuggets of a good concept here. I liked the idea that Booster encountered a situation where he knew things were going to turn out fine in the future... but then the events of Zero Hour meant that his future knowledge actually wasn't right. But all the stuff about Booster being dead and not dead was painted with way too broad a brush. I did like the stuff between Booster and Beetle, though; I feel like their friendship was largely not utilized during Dan Vado's run so it was good to see it in play here. The idea no one was being born or dying is creepy.

On the other hand, we once again get an ineffectual Wonder Woman up against a rash Captain Atom when it comes to command of the League. I don't know why we needed to see this play out three stories in a row; it's insulting to both characters. (And when and how did Atom even become a League member again?) This time we get the added layer of a UN-threatened League shutdown from Maxwell Lord. I'm not sure why Max was kept on as a lead character after Breakdowns when he has done so very little of interest except occasionally be the face of UN interference.

The big aspect of this story is the death of Ice. It comes across as a bit of a Chewbacca moment: "kill the family dog." That is to say, kill the nicest character because it will garner the most sympathy. In execution, it doesn't work very well. Ice had been absent from the League for a long time, and since her return, hasn't even really felt like Ice in any meaningful sense. She spends most of Judgment Day under the Overmaster's mind control, which is not really an interesting way for a character to spend their final appearance. Surely an effective character death should remind you of why you liked someone before they get killed off, but there's none of that here.

The one thing I did like about the death of Ice was the actual issue in which it happened, JLTF #14, certainly the best issue of the whole crossover. As the League acts to stop the Overmaster, we keep cutting to T. O. Morrow and a couple other villains; every time the League does something, we see Morrow cross it off of a list of things he knows are going to happen. The culminates in him crossing Ice's death off the list. It's a surprisingly effective mechanic from writer Mark Waid, giving the death of Ice some impact.

Lastly, Dan Vado and Marc Campos's run finishes out with a coda issue about how the death of Ice affected the team. The characters snarl and posture a lot; the potential drama of Fire dealing with this is of course squandered by bad writing and worse art.

from Justice League Quarterly #16

"Visions of Glory" / "The Heart of Darkness" / "The Sleeper Awakens" / "Guardian Angel", from Justice League Quarterly #16-17 (Fall-Winter 1994)
written by Paul Kupperberg, Charlie Bracey, and Andy Mangels; pencilled by Vince Giarrano, Rick Stasi, Curt Swan, Khato, Danny Rodriguez, Carlos Franco, and Phil Jimenez; inked by Vince Giarrano, Dick Ayers, Jose Marzan, Khato, Andrew Pepoy, Richard Space, Rich Rankin, and John Stokes; lettered by Albert De Guzman, Gaspar, Agnes Pinaha, Chris Eliopoulos, Bob Pinaha, and Clem Robins; colored by Patricia Mulvihill, Jerry Nicholas, Phil Allen, Greg Rosewall, Robbie Busch, Scott Ballman, and Greg Wright

The first of the last two issues of Justice League Quarterly seems pretty random: it's an all–General Glory issue. In the monthlies, General Glory last did something other than appear in a crowd shot back during Breakdowns, so around three years ago. I'm not sure why editorial decided he needed a whole book devoted to him!

But I'm not going to complain because this is pretty good stuff. There's a frame story set after Judgment Day; after its events, General Glory reverted to his Joe Jones form—and had a heart attack. He's been hospitalized alongside a paralyzed hero cop, and Jones spend their time together telling the cop stories from the General Glory comic books published after the General disappeared. This provides a frame story for four "flashback" stories—though we know none of them happened. The first is a Kirby monster comic pastiche, with pitch-perfect art from Rick Stasi and Dick Ayers; the second a bit of a Batman pastiche. These were both really good pastiche... but I didn't really see the point. Writer Paul Kupperberg did something similar in an earlier issue of JLQ (see item #9 in the list below), but there to comedic effect.

There is good comedy in the other two stories. The Dark Knight Returns parody is hilarious: "The rest of the world merely visits, never getting deeper into my heart and soul than the foyer of my life. Me, I live down in the cellar, alone, the dry-rot of my discontent eating away at the timbers of my emotional support." Amazing! The Image parody isn't quite as funny, but it has its moments still. (It is a bit grating that here in JLQ, Kupperberg is making fun of the Image aesthetic while over in JLA, they're just ripping it off. Either it's good or it's not, folks, pick a lane!) The frame story is surprisingly good, too, aided by some strong art from Vince Giarrino. It ends with the debut of a new General Glory. Unfortunately, I think this guy never appeared again for two decades until Geoff Johns (of course, it's always Geoff Johns) brutally killed him to prove a situation was serious.

The very last issue of JLQ has a Global Guardians lead feature; I thought we'd finally gotten past these guys but I guess not. Like too many of them, it's more about setting up a new status quo than actually telling an interesting story. Plus this one is a lot about something happening in some kind of series called... "Primal Force"? What even is that? Did the Global Guardians ever get an ongoing feature? I doubt it, and I'm not sure why JLQ spent so much time trying to position them for one. The other two stories here focus on Captain Atom and Maxima. The Captain Atom one is fine; it's nice to see a post-resurrection story where he's not a dumb jarhead but though the idea here is decent the execution didn't grab me. The Maxima one is surprisingly good, as Maxima struggles to help a young teenage runaway forced to work as a prostitute. It's a bit on-the-nose but I liked it a lot. It's too bad we didn't spend more of Maxima's time in the League delving into her complexities like this. Some great art by the great Phil Jimenez.

from Justice League International vol. 2 #67

"Silver Ages" / "Family Troubles", from Justice League Task Force #15 and Justice League International vol. 2 #67 (Aug. 1994)
stories by Mark Waid and Gerard Jones, pencils by Sal Velluto and Anthony Williams, inks by Jeff Albrecht and Luke McDonnell, letters by Bob Pinaha and Clem Robins, colors by Phil Allen and Gene D'Angelo 

This linked pair of issues has the League continuing to deal with the fallout of Ice's death. A tabloid outfit tries to get details on her; the League agrees to not speak to the press, but Blue Beetle breaks the silence, both to get the truth out there, and to use the money to pay Booster's medical bills. It has its moments, but there's too much melodramatic posing and snarling. Clearly a lot of these issues are devoted to shuffling off the board the characters who won't play a role in the post-Zero Hour League, like Doctor Light and Power Girl. (Did the Power Girl pregnancy storyline ever get resolved anywhere? Honestly, I kind of hope not.)

from Justice League Task Force #16

Return of the Hero!, from Justice League America #92, Justice League Task Force #16, and Justice League International vol. 2 #68 (Sept. 1994)
written by Christopher Priest; pencilled by Luke Ross, Greg LaRocque, and Phil Jimenez; inked by Cramer, Banning, Faucher, & Marzan Jr., Rich Rankin, and John Stokes; colored by Gene D'Angelo and Dave Grafe; letters by Clem Robins, Bob Pinaha, and Kevin Cunningham

Lastly, we finish out with a three-part story called Return of the Hero! The premise of this one is interesting: it turns out the Justice League had a sixth founding member we didn't know about, Triumph, who accidentally eliminated himself and the enemy the League was fighting from time. Triumph is brought back amid the timeline fluctuations of Zero Hour, along with the aliens he was fighting. But how can he get the League to help him when 1) they're in mourning for Ice, and 2) they don't remember he ever existed? This is by Priest, so it has a lot of good moments: Triumph's original story, the League needing to take a taxi to defeat the aliens in D.C., Ralph's self-realization about his role in the League, the Tasmanian Devil finally revealing his origin, L-RON in Despero's body. 

But it is brought down a bit by the repetitive over-the-top arguments and fights. I get that the League is under strain here but it feels like everyone says the same thing five times. And Triumph's own emotional throughline seems a bit muddled. I'm not totally sure what point is being made with him here.

This ends with the League in tatters... yet again. But like I said, that's enough for me for now! On to the returns of the original JLI team. 

This is the fifteenth in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers Formerly Known as the Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League. 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)