Some more Justice League 3000: Lee and Kirby by way of Woody Allen and Monty Python

[superboyprime]

A bit more from issue 1...



"Well, it’s Giffen-DeMatteis-Maguire doing what we do: high adventure through a lens of what I like to call neo-vaudeville. Lee and Kirby by way of Woody Allen and Monty Python, all of it rooted, first and foremost, in the characters. That said, this is a very different group—there’s no Beetle or Booster in sight—so they’ll dictate the tone as much as we do." - J.M. DeMatteis

"Absolutely. Why mess with what works? Now I know there are certain, quite vocal, folks out there who want their comics grim and gritty and heart attack serious and bleak and wretched but those aren't the readers we're shooting for." - Keith Giffen

Comments

[beoweasel]

"Am I the only one who thinks this is the stupidest idea ever

Wow, that's an accurate description of this comic!

Look! Superman is a huge, insufferable and narcissistic prick! Oh, and he and Batman absolutely hate one another! THESE ARE THINGS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE...EVER.

[superfangirl1]

It seems like the writer dial it up to the extreme with Superman and Batman bickering and fighting.

[darkknightjrk]

I think that's intentional. The "Wonder Twins" cloned these original Justice League members, but they couldn't get everything right. I wouldn't be surprised if, after a while, all these characters slowly become their own people and they're "allowed" to do so in order to be a better team--just because they're not fully the original Justice League doesn't mean they can't be the Justice League.

[mastermahan]

Incomplete clones of the Justice League, lacking the human connections that ground the real League, could be an interesting idea for a comic. This premise could be used to examine what it means to be a hero. Think of that great Morrison story where the JLA is split into their secret and heroic identities.

Unfortunately, what we have so far is your favorite heroes as bickering assholes. DC already has a comic where the world's greatest heroes are all assholes. It's called Justice League. At this point, the novel thing would be a comic where heroes acted like heroes.

Then again, I smell a twist coming. This could end up being DC's Thunderbolts, where damaged people still try to do the right thing. Fingers crossed.

[q99]

It does look to me very much like we're going to see 'em grow out of it.

From the pages above, I read 'they aren't really the Justice League... yet!'.

[omgwtflolbbqbye]

I believe it was Mark Waid who did the JLA split personas storyline, or at least the only really good once I can think of.

But yea, JL 3000 looks pretty fun to me so far. I liked seeing the rivalries and personal faults dialed to 11 but set in a series that clearly isn't supposed to be the 'baseline' depiction of the characters.

[mastermahan]

No, you're right, that was a Waid story. Good catch.

[darkknightjrk]

"DC already has a comic where the world's greatest heroes are all assholes. It's called Justice League."

I never get this phrase, but even if this is just accepted, you have to admit you can basically say the same thing about Giffen/DeMatteis' JLI as well.

[arbre_rieur]

Well, wasn't the G/DeM JLI hated at the time? Fans grumped about how the League was being written as a bunch of bickering schmucks instead of the world's greatest heroes. This wasn't the "real Justice League," they protested.

And today, Giffen and DeMatteis are again writing about a bunch of bickering schmucks under the Justice League banner once again. And once again, the fans voice similar complaints.

History vindicated the creative team the first time. Will it do so again?

[darkknightjrk]

Which one are you talking about, 3000 or the Johns stuff?

Johns probably won't be nearly as well-regarded, but I'm sure it'll be given more love once the sting of stuff like the relaunch and the SM/WW hook-up passes.

3000? I don't know, it'll probably depend if the sales are good.

[xandrea]

That's the entire point. This is a parody of New 52 Justice League.

[nyadnar17]

No one has ever done it before with such a sense of humor. Its meant to be funny and maybe its just me but the sexual tension between those seems higher than its ever been.

There is a difference between strawman characters built to play up the nastiness or "grimness" of the archtypes and people just having fun. This book seems like the later. It looks like a ton of fun that is written by people who actual love and admire their source material

[junipepper]

I agree that it has potential, which is why I'll keep buying at least for now. It's not really there yet, but it is only the first issue.

[cainofdreaming]

I'm starting to think that someone at Cadmus mislabelled the Crime Syndicate DNA samples...

[jmacq1]

I think...you very well may be on to something.

[kamino_neko]

Eh, it really only works for 2/5 of them.

Superman DEFINITELY reads a lot like Ultraman, and Wonder Woman could easily be mistaken for Superwoman, but the other three...

The tweaks needed to make this Batman feel like Bruce are about the same in magnitude, just in the opposite direction to those needed to make him feel like Owlman.

Flash is absolutely nothing like Johnny Quick. Pretty much 180 from him - lagging confidence, takes no joy in violence.

Lantern...not at all like Hal, but Power Ring's not exactly a complex character, and his one notable personality trait - god-tier paranoia - isn't on display.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Who says it has to be across the board? ;)

[darkknightjrk]

"Superman DEFINITELY reads a lot like Ultraman,"

I really don't see it, especially not this New 52 take on the character.

This Superman seems more like 90s Superboy/"The Metropolis Kid" on steroids.

[big_daddy_d]

Parts of it.. anyone else got the feeling someone watched the Batman Beyond episode of JLU and took the ideal of the Beyond Project a little further?

[shingi70]

This would read a whole lot better if it were the Teen Sidekicks of the Justice League and not clones.

But i'm confused we know the old Legion book from Earth-2 and this was presubly the main earths answer to the legion, but the new superboy says that Kon surives into the future and forms the Earth Prime Legion, something we might see in Future's End.

[kamino_neko]

we know the old Legion book from Earth-2

No we don't. Levitz has said 'could be, doesn't have to be.'

Also, the line that's supposed to point to it is either inconsistent with the events of Earth 2, or very, very strange phrasing on Bouncing Boy's part. While Superman (whose apparent death was at the hands of a bunch of Paradaemons, not Steppenwolf, who was busy with Wonder Woman at the time) can be said to have been sent to his doom by Steppenwolf, as he led the invasion, singling him out would be incredibly strange, since, so far as anyone knew, Steppenwolf killed all the Wonders except Catwoman and Terry Sloane. (I also don't see Chuck ignoring all the soldiers that died in defense of Earth, either.) Even presuming Power Girl and Huntress make it back and are therefor known to have survived, it's still strange to ignore the others. And this is ignoring that a couple months later it was revealed that Superman had survived that attack, albeit brainwashed, when he killed Steppenwolf for disloyalty to Darkseid. (Making Steppenwolf finally sending him to his doom later unlikely, though not impossible.)

It's, of course, not consistent with Prime Earth, either, and with Steppenwolf dead, doesn't seem likely to become so in the future, so the only way to comfortably absorb that line is to set Legion in a universe thus far unshown in any other books. (Which, in the above article, Levitz and Giffen say is just as much their intent as Earth 2 was.)

Unfortunately, setting Legion in any universe except the Prime Earth tends to play merry hell with Legion Lost and Teen Titans, but any time-travel-centric story is bound to have that happen anyway.

[doodleboy]

Have to admit though this is the first time I've liked Howard Porter's art... really improved from his Grant Morrison's Justice League days.

[darkknightjrk]

And what's interesting is that he had to basically completely change styles because he broke his dominant hand a few years back and had to relearn how to draw with his other hand, as I recall.

[wizardru]

The theory being put forth is that these aren't clones of the JLA,but the Teen Titans...which seems to track pretty well. The Flash clearly is a clone of Wally West, for example. Superman seems pretty spot on for Kon-El when he was first introduced. Batman could easily be one of the Robins (not likely Dick, but Tim I could see). I'm not sure who Wonder Woman would be...she doesn't quite seem like Donna Troy or the newer Wonder Girl to me. Maybe one of the other Amazons?

I've no idea who the Green Lantern clone would be, then.

[alexanderlucard]

Looking at the GL he looks a LOT like the original design of Guy Gardner before the Moe haircut. Yeah, he originally wasn't a redhead. Maybe he dies like Jason Todd? :-P Considering this is G&D, it could well be a clone of pre-brain damaged him explaining why he's so rational and calm.

[junipepper]

I can't map this to a straight switch of JL to Titans -- I mean, that is not Dick Grayson at any point in his life, and it doesn't seem particularly like Tim either. It might actually be a group of people who never worked together.

I feel like that really is Bruce, with something wrong with him, but it could (sigh) be Damien. Supes could easily be pre-crisis Kon-El. (Was he even on a team?) "You don't have heat vision" might be a hint. There has never been a Lantern in the Titans, that I know of. I don't know who the hell Wonder Woman is supposed to be. I guess some of them could have been sampled from more than one individual.

Maybe, Kon-El, Damien, Wally, Kyle (although Guy is an interesting idea), and... I still have no idea who the hell Wondy is. She seems more like the very early New 52 Cassie than anyone else I can think of, but looks nothing like her.

[kamino_neko]

There has never been a Lantern in the Titans, that I know of.

Kyle was a member of the New Titans.

But looking for Titans is almost certainly barking up the wrong tree - probably even the wrong forest. Especially those connected to the Leaguers and potentially taking on their costumed identities. (Or, in Kyle's case, having the same one right from the start.)

That's too small a lie for even the most over-hype-prone writer to think it would be as shocking a swerve as Giffen implied they've got in store.

[darkknightjrk]

I think it's fair to say that they are physically clones their respective Leaguers--but the cloning was imperfect, and you really can't perfectly clone personalities. So, my guess is that part of what makes this team into one that works together is when they can stop trying to be their respective member of the Justice League and be themselves as the Justice League, be their own person.

So from this, we could see this Flash turn into a Wally West, or this Superman into a Kon-El/Conner Kent, and really, can you look me in the eye and tell me that "a Wonder Woman clone from the 31st Century" isn't the least complicated origin story Donna Troy could ever have?

[kamino_neko]

I think it's fair to say that they are physically clones their respective Leaguers

I don't think so, personally.

Two of them in particular stand out as obvious counterarguments: Superman and Flash.

Flash it's pretty obvious - Barry's got blond hair and blue eyes, this guy's got red and green. (It's a bluish shade of green, granted, but Wonder Woman, Superman, and the Wonder Twins have much bluer eyes, so I think it's pretty clear he's not meant to have blue.)

Superman isn't quite as blatant, but much more than the others, he's got a strong consistency in how he's drawn, regardless of the artist, and it's nothing like this guy. That this version is drawn as a brick wall, whereas present Clark is simply well-built can be chalked up to conditioning, or taking a later period as the standard, but even his bone structure is rather consistent in the present, and completely different here.

I suspect Superboy circa Reign of the Supermen is the likely closest analogue to what's going on here - Cadmus attempted to approximate the JL's abilities when they were unable to clone them directly, and those are the gene samples Masters and the Wonder Twins used to create this lot.

(Alternate theory - they're clones of The Five with approximations of the JL's personality templates applied on top (which didn't take, properly, because of lack of memories). Would fit fairly well with the cloning of Batman and Lantern who didn't have much special in the gene department.)

[wake_the_dragon]

For the most part, I'm actually liking this based on the scans here. I'm not that fond of how they're portraying the Wonder Woman clone, but that's my only real complaint so far. Usually, I'm not a fan of the heroes bickering with each other, but Superman and Batman's fighting but it's being portrayed by the writers as so ridiculous that it's just really funny to me. I'm also getting the feeling that it's something they're going to grow out of.

I'm also hoping that the theory that the clones are really of the Teen Titans is right, since it does seem very likely based at least on the pages here. Especially since it would mean that Flash is really Wally. Though I'm not sure who Wonder Woman and Green Lantern would be (she doesn't remind me of either Donna or Cassandra, and I'm not that familiar with the Lanterns to guess). I think I might actually pick up this issue anyway.

[xandrea]

"I'm not that fond of how they're portraying the Wonder Woman clone"

Are you kidding? That's the best part! It's a fantastic indictment of Johns' Wonder Woman.

[captainbellman]

Calling it: Luthor added samples of his DNA to the batch and labelled it "Batman/Bruce Wayne".

[nate_abril96]

You know, I think I might actually like this. I'm usually not a fan of superheroes acting like total jerks (especially Superman), which is part of the reason why I don't like the New 52 Justice League, but here it's done so over the top and dialed to the extreme that it's actually funny. I also get feeling that this is going to lead to some genuine character growth. I also hope that the theory that these are actually the Teen Titans is also true, as it would explain so much.

[donnblake]

So, if you cloned Bruce Wayne and the clone didn't have the trauma of his parents dying, shouldn't you just wind up with a reasonably healthy adult male?

[obsidianwolf]

Unless they are going with the old chestnut of there always being something incredibly off in Bruce Wayne that would have led him down a violent road but his parents death motivated him in the direction of violent vigilante crime fighter instead of just violent.

[donnblake]

Hmm. The only time I remember seeing that was All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder.

[obsidianwolf]

It has always been more of a fan theory but it has crept up from time to time with little nods. Often IMO when ever they ask the question why he doesn't kill the joker the answer often seems to be that Batman just wouldn't stop if he crossed that line.

[jlbarnett]

this is supposed to be funny? How?

[crabby_lioness]

Back to the drawing board....

I'm talking to the writers, not the twins.

[shadowpsykie]

.... this is Giffen and DeMateis?

i'm willing to give them a chance... the comic at least seems aware that these leaguers are REALLY REALLY off... so that is something......

*bites lip*