Justice League International #4 – Review

By: Dan Jurgens (writer), Aaron Lopresti (penciller), Matt Ryan (inker), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: This is how the world ends—as a flashing, neon disco light before obliteration.

The Review: This issue picks up where we left off last time, with Booster Gold and Batman fending off a legion of golems as they attempt to prevent an alien mechanism threatening to destroy the planet.  Their struggle proves futile, as they get overwhelmed by drastically superior numbers and unthinking persistence from their foes.  As they succumb to the pressure, Booster cries, “This can’t be happening!  If we go down, who’s left to save the earth?”

He may not realize it, but his line has a lot of significance attached.  For one thing, the question is almost preposterously rhetorical.  I don’t know about you, but my first thought after reading it was, How about the actual Justice League?  Let’s face it: with the original League well in existence, made up of the most recognizable, beloved, and powerful heroes in DC canon, JLI is never going to be more than a paltry alternative, and a very redundant one at that.

Booster’s utterance of “This can’t be happening!” also exemplifies the largely generic and often melodramatic quality of dialogue Jurgens has brought to this series.  Very little of it comes with actual personality attached, making most of the lines interchangeable among the hefty cast.  Also irritating is their propensity for stating the obvious, a habit even Batman can’t get out of: “Some kind of animated dirt and rock creatures.”

Often, you get the sense Jurgens pens the script almost mechanically, with no true spark of imagination behind it.  Just last issue, while fighting the same “animated dirt and rock creatures,” Booster mentioned, “One of these guys latched on to a place you really don’t want anyone to latch onto, know what I’m sayin’?”  He redelivers essentially the same joke in the opening pages here: “…they keep grabbing me in the worst places.”

Jurgens demonstrates quite clearly that his humor leans mostly toward the penile.  I rolled my eyes at Godiva’s incessant come-ons for the past few issues, but she takes it to an even more shameless level here.  With the team trapped by golem goop, she uses her hair to probe through Batman’s gooky bonds to get the laser cutter out of his belt.  “Got it!” she exclaims.  “That is not my belt,” he informs her, unamused.  Considering she just groped Batman in the middle of a crisis, it’s safe to say her sexual freedom has gotten a bit out of control.

Justice League International #3 – Review

By: Dan Jurgens (writer), Aaron Lopresti (penciller), Matt Ryan (inker), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: Actually, I can believe it’s not the Justice League.

The Review: On the topic of super-teams that need to distinguish themselves from the Justice League, let’s turn our attention to one of the most obvious offenders.  We mustn’t forget that for a long time, JLI was the Justice League, one that some readers loved and still remember as their definitive version of the team.  Ever since Grant Morrison’s “pantheon” version of League, however, JLI has been relegated to running joke status, a rut that can be a challenge to get out of.

It looks like Jurgens wants to tackle the issue head-on, but at an angle.  Instead of setting up JLI as an actual joke (vis-à-vis Geoff Johns’ take on Aquaman #1), Jurgens establishes them from the start as more of a PR stunt, a band of heroes that excel more in political correctness than actual competence as a fighting unit (Godiva proves, once again, that she is nearly worthless in a crisis situation).  Think of Vatican City’s Swiss Guard, and you’ll get the general idea.

To get the group past that image, Jurgens throws in a global-scale threat, betting they have what it takes to beat the odds and actually use their multinational strength for global good.  Of course, you have to question why other, more practiced teams (say, Stormwatch, or, I dunno, the Justice League?) don’t step in to take care of things as they usually do, but let’s leave that matter aside.  After all, the JLI have to prove themselves useful at some point, right?

Unfortunately, they don’t do much of that in this issue.  Overall, the plot becomes your typical “split off the team and watch them fall apart, two-by-two,” which becomes a bit predictable after a while, especially since each unit has exactly the same mission (one distracts the giant, the other establishes access to the cavern underneath) and they wind up scrapping with the exact same enemies (earthen golems that chitter—“Chtk-chtk-chtk!”—in an increasingly annoying fashion).

Justice League International #2 – Review

By: Dan Jurgens (writer), Aaron Lopresti (penciller), Matt Ryan (inker), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: Well, it’s not “Hands Around the World,” but it’ll have to do.

The Review: With one Justice League already in existence, and with all the world’s biggest, brawniest, most recognizable heroes counted in the roster, it really puts all other teams to shame, doesn’t it?  Justice League Dark may have proven its value where purely mystical threats are concerned, and Stormwatch when it comes to covert planetary guardianship, but JLI has been a sanctioned imitation from the start, and will have to work that much harder to break out.

It’ll have a much harder time of it if Jurgens doesn’t figure out how to write any of the characters beyond their most basic conceptions.  Rocket Red and August General spend most of the issue taking digs at each other’s nationalistic pride (“To be saved by miracle of Russian technology is glorious for you!”  “Chinese science would have been faster and more efficient.”), which comes across embarrassingly clichéd and antiquated—what is this, the late seventies?

This lack of identity applies double to the women.  While Godiva has sort of found a voice for herself (and it is the voice of a randy lady), her fellow females all have a sameness to their dialogue, making them exceptionally interchangeable.  Here’s a sample of all four women talking at once (see if you can tell who’s who!): “Is he trying to tell Batman what to do?”  “You heard right.”  “This is about to get good.”  …”He’ll need the doctor more than me.”

Even with the most fully-formed personalities of the team, Jurgens seems in creative competition with others and himself.  Batman sounds as dour and commanding as ever, but certainly has none of the spark Scott Snyder, Geoff Johns, or Grant Morrison have given him.  Jurgens gives Guy a lot of sound and fury, but none of the wit and depth Peter Tomasi lends him in Green Lantern Corps.  And while Booster, as Jurgens’ specialty, comes across the most convincing of all the team, his agonizing self-doubt certainly makes him unrecognizable.

While shocking to see the team rank on Booster, just because he chooses to back off from a fight and see to his teammate’s injuries, it’s even more shocking to see Booster simply take their abuse so personally and without a peep.  The fact he even considers stepping down at this first sight of discontent already proves he doesn’t have the chops to lead, and ultimately, it’s the intercession of Batman and August General, not his own skills, which restores trust in him.

Justice League International #1 – Review

By: Dan Jurgens (writer), Aaron Lopresti (penciller), Matt Ryan (inker), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: I don’t know about you guys, but all this is giving me an urge to visit EPCOT.

The Review: While there’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of JLI, its recreation does call into question the place of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in the new DCU.  Considering the UN’s fairly scant resources (and management skills—zing!), it hardly stands to reason the international body could sponsor one team of heroes, let alone two.  I have a sneaking suspicion that rather than address this logistical conflict, DC will take their usual course of ignoring the issue altogether.

But let’s set that aside to focus on the logistics at hand.  Jurgens doesn’t exactly start on the strongest possible foot, dragging us through an extended roll call of the team that includes a bunch of faces that never even make the cut (though that hardly means they won’t show up again later down the line).  For those wondering, the folks giving the say on who’s in and out of the team are reps from Russia, China, and Britain.  Not to get political, but in what possible scenario would anyone trust folks from those countries to jointly call the shots on anything?

It doesn’t help that team manager Andre Briggs emphasizes and reemphasizes some very unconvincing motivations for putting this new league together: “We’re at a volatile crossroads and…the old ways aren’t working.”  I’m going to take a chance and guess that political science wasn’t Jurgens’ major in college, as the idea that one guy can just convince three unelected figures to back this costly, expansive venture on behalf of the world is too stupendous for words.

So if all the public discord in this issue distracts from the team’s formation, you can hardly blame them.  Anyway, the interplay among the cast isn’t so engaging that you’d find it hard to tear your eyes away.  With so many people talking at once, the dialogue certainly zips, but with few exceptions, none of them display much personality.  Vixen, Fire, and Ice all seem to have the same levelheaded, straight woman voice, and August General in Iron hardly even speaks.