Justice League of America #3 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), David Finch (art), Richard Friend (inks), Sonia Oback (colors)

The Story: Catwoman is kind of like your coworker who likes to steal supplies from the office.

The Review: If there’s one thing the JLA definitely has going for it, something that puts them a step above their iconic peers, it’s a bubbling brew of personalities.  With the Justice League proper, you can tell there are differences between them, but very narrow ones, kept very tight to their characters.  The members of the JLA, on the other hand, wear their differences quite openly, allowing them to clash with a lot more abandon.

It all makes for a livelier read, even when not very much happens.  The JLA’s encounter with the robot-Trinity is only moderately exciting, as the fakes seem to have only the most basic abilities of the real thing.  You’re not inclined to see the JLA’s takedown of three mechanical imposters as the same as facing against all ten current members of the Justice League (soon to be eleven, with Zatanna slated to join—re-join?—the team).  That doesn’t stop Steve Trevor from remarking, perhaps naively, in wonder, “The Justice League versus the Justice League.”

Justice League of America #2 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), David Finch (art), Sonia Oback (colors)

The Story: The team goes on their first mission without so much as a proper, rah-rah send-off.

The Review: One thing that really hampered Justice League when it first hit the stands was how much time it spent simply getting itself together.  It wasn’t until I think the fourth of fifth issue that you finally had the entire group in the same place, which is a pretty long time for a team book to gather its wits about it.  On the plus side, with the invasion from Apokolips as the trigger for their formation, they never wanted for action from the first issue.

Justice League of America seems to have the opposite problem.  Although you get pretty much the whole crew (minus Simon Baz, who’s still occupied over in Green Lantern) in one room within the issue’s first few pages, by the end of the issue, you still haven’t really seen them go to work.  In fact, aside from Green Arrow’s brief flashback to his infiltration of the Secret Society, there’s no League action at all.