Justice League of America #1

[history79]

12.5 pages of 38

Comments

[violetclm.livejournal.com]

...

...

...OH, that thing on the cover is somebody's hand.

[mastermahan]

Wait, but who's it belong to?

[scorntx]

... That first page was an excuse just to draw Diana's chest, wasn't it?
Everything else was just a flimsy pretext for boobs.


What does Diana have against Nightwing? And Vixen?
And why does Clark object to Mr Terrific being on the Justice League?

-"the only consideration you weigh is whether you trust them"-
Yes, what an absolutely bizarre thing to weigh when putting together a team.[/sarcasm]

There's a lot of this that is just plain baffling...

[icon_uk]

Diana has nothing against Nightwing, he's Donna's best friend after all. (I think it's as much she doesn't like being outmanouvered by Bruce and I'm not even sure she's serious about that)

I can't recall whether it's this recruitment drive or an earlier one we find out, when Clark and Diana suggest that it's about time he joined and has long since earned it, Bruce notes that he's already asked him (in direct opposition to the agreed rules, but when it comes to his eldest, Bruce doesn't really care about rules) and he had declined.

With Vixen it might, and I only suggest might, be down to her still needing the Tantu totem to access her powers (and I think they were also on the fritz around this time), Buddy can do all that she can do, and without the need for a magic amulet.

[q99]

Weird thing is, I generally think of Vixen as solidly the better fighter of the two, and it's not like they're much different in experience.

[silicondream]

She's certainly the more enthusiastic fighter. Buddy's more likely to ask his opponent, his wife and the universe why there has to be a fight in the first place. If I wanted a reliable team player, I'd pick Mari in a heartbeat.

[icon_uk]

I'd say Mari has MORE experience, since she served on the Justice League Detroit and a spell with the Suicide Squad.

[q99]

Yea, point. He was introduced as a character first but he doesn't come across as as active a one to me. I mean, he has a family too, so in-universe reasons for that.

[icon_uk]

It's always been one of the things I liked most about Buddy; He has powers, and doesn't shirk that responsibility when it arises, but has other things in his life too.

[glprime]

I also keep remembering the Obsidian Age arc from JLA, where Batman/Oracle had Nightwing as basically the emergency Reservist League's leader, so my head-canon is, he feels he needs to always decline membership, because he needs to be on constant stand-by.

[lordultimus]

They had at least enough self awareness to make a joke about it when they introduced the new Injustice League/Legion of Doom. (Cheetah: Luthor, tell Joker to stop staring at my chest!)

[icon_uk]

Gotta say, that doesn't work for me on a number of levels;

First and most importantly, Cheetah would not ask a man to stop another man staring at her, she'd deal with it herself, and it would be violent, and messy.

Secondly the Joker having any sort of a standard sexual response seems... off. I suppose he MIGHT do it just to annoy Cheetah, but I'd still not be a fan.

Cheetah should never sound like she's whining... Is that the same team that has Dr Light as a member and she objects strongly to having a rapist around and is told that given the number murderers around the place, rape isn't that big a deal, which is missing the point?

[bizarrohulk]

If I remember right, Luthor's response to Cheetah's complaint was "well, if we're going to limit ourselves to people of good character ..."

Which, come to think of it, doesn't really make much sense for Luthor, either. Why is he hanging around with rapists like Dr Light and psychotic murderers like Joker? Even in his "mad scientist" phase, that should have been out of character for him.

[silicondream]

I don't think Luthor's ever had a problem hanging out with horrible people; he views most of humanity with contempt anyway, and is always skeptical of noble motives. Cheetah's more like the Rogues; she wants to work with people she respects and can place a modicum of trust in. To Luthor, everybody else is a pawn. He'll work with murderers, genocidal space warlords, Neron--doesn't matter as long as they're useful. And he'll betray them the instant it serves his purposes.

Post-Crisis, at least, Luthor has teamed up with the Joker on several occasions. They're usually a hair's-breadth from killing each other, but Joker's insanity and Luthor's arrogance let them work together comfortably right up to that point.

[lego_joker]

We totally need to get those Many Faces of Barbara Minerva posts back up again...

[q99]

On a similar note, why are they calling Hawkman a Tank?

He's Fast Attack, or maybe DPS, but he's not as tanky as even Vixen, let alone the heavy bricks.

-"the only consideration you weigh is whether you trust them"-
Yes, what an absolutely bizarre thing to weigh when putting together a team.[/sarcasm]-

Flipside, I don't think there's a single candidate considered who's not worthy of their trust (and has often earned it in the field, outside of some of the younger ones).

[silicondream]

Superman's the tank. He's always been the tank in Justice League stories. His job is to fly in and flash the "S" and wrestle with the Big Bad for as long as the other characters need to zap from a distance or come up with a cool science/magic trick to save the day.

Hawkman, no.

[q99]

Yea, sometimes he's not the only tank, and WW is also a tank, and GLs can be secondary tanks, but he tanks more than the rest. More-so than in his solo stories since he's blocking for the rest of the team where he might take other roles where tanking isn't needed.

Hawkman could *maybe* be the tank in a team of street levelers, but he's not even Aquaman level tankiness. Bruce mentions both Arthur and Victor- and he's right, Aquaman and Cyborg can both do a useful level of tanking in a way Hawkman can't.

[silicondream]

Heck, even in a street-level team, I'd have any member with actual body armor tank instead of Hawkman. He heals fast, but not fast enough to soak bullets or blades last time I checked.

One also wonders why the Trinity are referring to potential teammates with gamer lingo in the first place. Superheroics aren't a game to them, and their missions don't have much in common with a dungeon run.

[q99]

I don't think it's intended to be specific game lingo, but talking tactical roles makes sense (though one thing that bugs me is that they're saying that Diana is only caring about tactical roles when, hey, she's the diplomat who is the most personable of the bunch! This is around the period where DC was starting to head down the 'Warrior warrior warrior? Warrior warrior!' path with Di). Tank, brick, 'someone tough,' it adds up to the same.

And Hawkman.. does demonstrate a willingness to take hits, and can block a fair amount with that mace of his, so despite the lack of armor I think he's relatively good in the role. For a street level crew, not for this team here. I mean, they're discussing Captain Marvel on the list, and he's arguably tankier than Superman!

[joetuss]

I think they meant brick, or cannon fodder.

[q99]

He's not really a brick, is the point.

Cannon fodder... I'd hope they wouldn't do that with their friends ^^;

[randyripoff]

It's Ed Benes. He always does this. Always.

[q99]

This run really disappointed me. We had this setup of the big three setting up a team, which wasn't the team we got, and then I found a lot of the stories underwhelming like the Red Tornado thing, after 52 had Booster hyping it as the Greatest League EverTM. I get that RT's original story was great but he's not exactly what one should kick off a supposed A+ League team's first mission with.

The pre-Infinite Crisis JLA was mostly rather great (ok, not some of the stuff towards the end, but Morrison, Waid, Kelly, plus some of the smaller runs after), and this one just kinda struck me as smaller in scope.


Though I do like Diana recommending the GLs compete in a contest- remember how she got her hero title!

[glprime]

Man, I hate doin' that "Back in my day..." thing, but yeah, those couple of runs were pretty dang good at have a wide scope book, and you can see why Marvel hit back with The Ultimates book, in their "widescreen" storytelling. It just had so many cool sequences, good character beats, and long-range plots that came to fruition (still waiting on that damn Solaris stuff Morrison kept teasing for Superman :P)

[q99]

What really got me is I was under the strong impression that DC was trying to hype me with, "Hey, remember those larger-than-life runs? We've had a few smaller stories since then in our rotating writers, but get prepared for the return of that!", when instead we got a much more 70s-80s inspired league and smaller stories... the biggest foe I can remember them fighting are Amazo and the Injustice League, who, yea, no pushover, but anti-gods and ancient leagues and a roster with tons of power who fought, among other things, bigger Injustice Leagues...

[reveen]

A zoom in on the characters finely detailed chests might just be the most weird and awkward way to open a story I've ever seen.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I figured it was for their logos, but...

[icon_uk]

Crotch shots would, arguably, have been worse...

[scorntx]

Only the difference between being stabbed with a knife, and stabbed with a knife covered in lemon juice, really.

[starwolf_oakley]

While Bruce, Clark and Diana are going over all these photos, Hal, Ollie and Dinah are ACTUALLY putting a new Justice League together.

[beyondthefringe]

You know they're basically just playing fantasy hero team draft picks... I love how they have convenient trading cards for everyone they're interested in.

[byc]

I vaguely remember thinking that Benes' art wasn't as good for this as it was for other titles in the past. Maybe the coloring, but it's not as sharp.

I had high hopes for this relaunch, but it ended pretty quickly. The first arc was really all over the place.

[wizardru]

So much of the voices here seems way off...I mean, yes, MELTZER, but still. How do you misunderstand these characters so, SO much?

Also, this whole scene seems designed to emulate not a fantasy football draft but the selection sequences from American Idol where they have the judges sitting around a table and cinematically argue over the candidates they're going to prune before going to the next stage.