Justice League of America (vol. 2) #42

Issue Credits

• Writer: James Robinson
• Pencils: Mark Bagley
• Inks: Rob Hunter, Norm Rapmund and Jonathan Glapion
• Colors: Pete Pantazis
• Letters: Rob Leigh
• Cover: Mark Bagley (signed), Rob Hunter (signed), and Pete Pantazis
• Variant Cover: Adriana Melo, Mariah Benes, and Nei Ruffino
• Associate Editor: Adam Schlagman
• Editor: Eddie Berganza

Characters

Featuring

• Atom (Ray Palmer, last appeared in Blackest Night #8)
• Batman (Dick Grayson, appeared last issue)
• Black Canary (Dinah Queen)
• Cyborg (Victor Stone, appeared last issue)
• Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi, appeared last issue)
• Donna Troy (appeared last issue)
• Green Arrow (Oliver Queen, appeared last issue)
• Green Lantern (Hal Jordan, appeared last issue)
• Guardian (James Harper, appeared last issue)
• Mon-El (Lar Gand, appeared last issue)
• Red Tornado (John Smith, appeared last issue)
• Starfire (Koriand’r, appeared last issue)

Guest-Stars

• The Power Company
  • Joshua Power (leader of the Power Company)
  • Carl Bork (unconscious)
  • Skyrocket (Celia Forrestal, unconscious)
• The Shade (Richard Swift, last appeared Cry For Justice #7)

Villains

• Atlas
• Unidentified figure (page 5, panel 2, revealed in JLA #45 to be Faust)
• “New God” villains:
  • Doctor Impossible (last appeared in Justice League of America vol 2. #4 (Jan 07))
  • Hunter (first appearance)
  • The Chair (first appearance)
  • Neon Black (appeared last issue)
  • Tender Mercy (first appearance)

Other

• Darwin Jones (scientific investigator, appeared last issue)

Flashbacks

The Challengers Era

• The Challengers of the Unknown
  • Walter “Prof” Haley
  • Kyle “Ace” Morgan
  • Leslie “Rocky” Davis
  • Matthew “Red” Ryan
• League of Challenger-Haters
  • Multi-Man
  • Kra
  • Volcano Man
• Doctor Will Magnus
• Metal Men (Gold, Iron, Platinum, Mercury, Tin, Lead)

1944

• Black Hawk and the Blackhawks
• Plastic Man
• The Freedom Fighters
  • Uncle Sam
  • Ray

Synopsis: “Team History”

Green Arrow meets the Shade and is asked if he’s ready for the journey that he is about to take. Arrow says he’s ready and Shade then leads him into a swirling maelstrom of shadow. [Off screen: this leads into the epilogue of Cry For Justice #7 where Green Arrow appears in Prometheus’s Crooked House and puts an arrow between his eyes.]

In Atlanta, Atlas, a reformed mythological juggernaut, who had worked for General Lane’s Project 7734, is on the rampage. Donna Troy, Starfire, Batman, and Green Lantern try to corral his mindless rampage, but each of them is burdened by their insecurities about the new League. They defeat Atlas and he’s taken away by Lane’s Human Defence Corps. However, Atlas claims that somebody else was controlling his mind and emotions. An unidentified figure watches the fight from the shadows.

The Past, at some unspecified time: the Challengers of the Unknown have just defeated the League of Challenger-Haters (Volcano Man, Kra, and Multi-Man). Their fight had dislodged part of a mountain side revealing an unusual alien device. After touching the device Ace falls into a violent madness that takes three hours to pass. Professor Haley calls in Will Magnus and his Metal Men to safely dispose of the device. With their help it is sent to a newly opened research facility called STAR Labs.

In the present day, Darwin Jones describes to the Atom the theft of another alien device (during JLA #41) by a new villain called Neon Black. He tells the Atom that he is sure it was only one part of a larger device. Meanwhile, Joshua Power’s Company are protecting STAR Labs’ Fawcett City facility when it comes under attack by other villains called Doctor Impossible and Hunter. They steal the device that the Challengers had unearthed and then leave. The Atom links the two thefts and calls a briefing of the full Justice League. He informs them that the technology used by the thieves is the same as that used by the New Gods of New Genesis. Green Arrow was meant to be at the meeting, but Black Canary and Green Lantern are worried by his absence. She confesses that Prometheus’ attack on Roy Harper and Star City has left her numb.

Cyborg, who had been repairing the Red Tornado, finds a report of another device that had turned up in 1944. The Black Hawks, Uncle Sam, and Plastic Man had been fighting a Nazi War Wheel, when they found an identified alien device. Plastic Man’s inert body allowed him to handle it without harm and it was stored on Blackhawk Island. Meanwhile, on the present day Blackhawk Island, two more villains (the Chair and Tender Mercy) are battling Congorilla and Mikaal Tomas for possession of the device. The heroes are knocked out, but the villain’s escape route is blocked by the newly arrived Justice League.

[It is assumed that Green Arrow’s interlude with Prometheus is over. ] Back at the JLA Watchtower, Doctor Impossible, Hunter, and Neon Black arrive to steal something while the League is occupied on Blackhawk Island. It’s at that moment that Green Arrow finally arrives back at the Watchtower.

Commentary

Timing

The way I read Justice League of America #42 is that the events of the final pages of Cry For Justice #7 occur somewhere off screen between Green Arrow’s two scenes in this comic. At the time that this, the second part of the new post-Cry For Justice, post-Blackest Night Justice League, shipped we still hadn’t seen the end of either Cry For Justice or Blackest Night. However, the synchronisation with Cry For Justice ended up better than we could have hoped for. Cry For Justice #7 shipped two-weeks after Justice League of America #42 shipped, but the surprise of Green Arrow’s actions remained intact until Cry For Justice #7. From Justice League of America#41 we knew a bit about Prometheus’s plan and that the League had voted to set him free.

At the time of JLA #41 looked as if the plot had been well and truly spoilt, but the big twist – the death of Lian Harper and Prometheus execution – remained intact. I’m not sure how the internal timing of Cry For Justice #7 and the Rise and Fall event was planned by DC Comics, but the momentum of Cry For Justice #7 really feels like its still going. In hindsight it would have been strange for the execution to occur several months earlier – in time for Justice League of America #41 – and for us then have had to wait while Green Arrow was still running around in other book as if nothing had happened yet.

The New Gods Connection

This three-part story expands on the idea of Doctor Impossible – a character created by Brad Meltzer as an evil version of Mister Miracle. There are now five reverse New Gods. Shown above these are  – The Chair (Metron), Doctor Impossible (Mister Miracle), Hunter (Orion), Neon Black (Lightray) and Tender Mercy (Big Barda). They’re playing scavenger hunt in this story, but we’re no closer to knowing their real origin.

General Lane

There is a bit of back story from the Superman comics that keeps popping up through this issue and that’s General Lane’s anti-alien project. Sam Lane is Lois Lane’s father and had been the US Secretary of Defence during Lex Luthor’s Presidency. He was killed, or so we believed, saving Washington from an Imperiex Probe, but he survived and after the War he started a secret project to gather any and all resources he could. This includes the command of the Human Defence Corps – the branch of the US military trained and equipped to fight on alien worlds.

When Superman enlarged the Bottle City of Kandor he unwittingly created a situation which the xenophobic General Lane could use to his advantage. Lane has been gunning for a show down with the Kryptonians and has manipulated the press, public opinion, and anybody else he can to bring it about. At the moment General Lane may well be a bigger threat to Earth security than his opposite number, New Krypton’s General Zod.

Annotations

• 3.2 There are a lot of Jack Kirby characters popping up through this issue. The first is Atlas, he is a demi-god whose first, and until quite recently only, appearance was in First Issue Special #1 (April 1975).  That story ended up on a cliff hanger and wasn’t resolved. Atlas reappeared early on in James Robinson’s run on Superman. His magically derived powers made him real challenge for Superman. However, Atlas was defeated and handed over to the authorities. He now serves as the muscle for General Lane’s Project 7734.
• 5.1 Atlas in Atlanta – Atlanta is named after the Atlantic Ocean, which it turn is named after the mythological Atlas. The mythological Atlas was one of the Titans, a giant who stood astride the Mediterranean Sea and supported the sky upon his shoulders.
• 5.1 Human Defence Corps – These first appeared in Human Defence Corps #1 (July 2003) and were created by Ty Templeton. The then US President, Lex Luthor, despised meta-humans and hated that he constantly had to depend on them to save the USA from extra-normal threats. His answer was to create a branch of the military which would/could handle the threats that the superheroes usually dealt with. They have seen action against vampires, shape-shifting Durlans, and have even invaded Hell. General Lane made sure that the Corps were assigned to his control after he established Project 7734.
• 6.1 The second round of Jack Kirby in this issue comes from the Challengers of the Unknown. They debuted in the late-1950s in Showcase #6 (Feb 1957) as a quartet of adventurers who had each survived an encounter that should have killed them. They are then conscious that they are “living on borrowed time” and banded together to keep the world safe. Their strange adventures and the quartet number are notable as after leaving the Challengers Jack Kirby went to Marvel Comics and co-created the Fantastic Four.
• 6.1 The League of Challenger Haters are your classic band of individual villains who, having been unsuccessful on their own, decide that they might have a chance if they combined their skills with other like minded villains. The members show here are Volcano Man (either the original monster or one of several synthetic duplicates), Multi-Man (Duncan Pramble, he gains a new super-power each time he dies and resurrects, he actually joined the Justice League’s Antarctica branch during its short incarnation), and Kra (an alien “King of Robots”, he was exiled from his home planet and came to Earth to make trouble against the Challengers, it was Kra who first assembled the League of Challenger Haters).
• 9.1 Will Magnus is the creator of  the Metal Men, a group of robots. They are created by small devices called responsometers. These animate a quantity of inanimate metal and transforming it into a thinking, moving robot with abilities and a personality based on the properties – real or mythological – of that metal. Will Magnus and Professor Haley of the Challengers were name checked last issue when Darwin Jones was bemoaning his fate. They were both shown on the TV screens in Cry For Justice discussing the threat of Prometheus’s devices.
• 11.1 Fawcett City, Captain Marvel’s home turf.
• 11.2 The Power Company were created by Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett. They are a group of corporate superheroes founded and manager by the former attorney Joshua Power. The are patterned after a law-firm with members being either partners or associates. The gentleman in the suit is Joshua Power, he has the ability to transform into a superstrong, rock-like form. The two figures on the floor are Carl Bork (a reformed Gotham criminal) and Skyrocket (Celia Forrestal, pilot of the Argo Harness).
• 11.2 Numbers 20:18 – The Edomites were a group or tribe who refused to let the Israelites pass through their lands on their journey back to Israel from Egypt. The full quote is “But Edom said to him: `You shall not  pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you.`”
• 12.1 Doctor Impossible was created by Brad Meltzer and first made his appearance in Justice League of America vol 2. #1 (Oct 2006). His back-story was never fully revealed in print, but he claimed to have been trained under Darkseid’s lieutenants. Meltzer described him as Mister Miracle’s evil brother. Hunter is new, but there is an obvious similarity with Orion of the New Gods.
• 14-15.2 Durlan – A race of alien shape shifters from the planet Durla. Like the Daxamites (Mon-El’s people) the Durlans are legendarily xenophobic. They’re one of the core races in the Legion of Superheroes or L.E.G.I.O.N. books. The present day Durlans were part of the Dominator led Invasion crossover in the late 1980s. Both the American and Chinese military have fought Durlans – the Chinese encounter was responsible for bestowing several of the Great Ten with their superpowers while the American Human Defence Corps’s first mission was against Durlans. It would be logical to assume that STAR Labs is studying material captured during that encounter. The thirty-first century Legionnaire Chameleon Boy is a Durlan. He is currently in the present day posing as Control of the Metropolis Science Police.
• 14-15.7 New Genesis is the home world of the New Gods, Jack Kirby’s opus about alien superheroes as gods. Their distinctive technology includes the Mother Box sentient computers and the Boom Tube teleportational tunnel. The Universe-Zero versions of the New Gods were killed in a war with Darksied and were then reborn in Universe-51 at the end of the Final Crisis series. This is one of the first real appearances of anything connected to them since then.
• 18.1 1944 The Black Hawks, Plastic Man, and the Freedom Fighters (only Uncle Sam and the Ray are shown) were all Golden Age characters who had once been published by Quality Comics. After the Second World War their titles were either cancelled or were taken over by DC Comics. The group, the Freedom Fighters, appeared later in a Justice League story that featured them as the sole remaining resistance group on a parallel world where the Nazi’s had won WWII. Plastic Man has been an off-and-on member of the Justice League since the 1990s. He last appeared as a Leaguer in Justice League of America #40 fighting the Black Lanterns.
• 20-21.1 The Chair would a parallel of Metron and the woman, Tender Mercy (here name is established several pages later in a reference by Doctor Impossible), appears to be a parallel of Big Barda.

Opinions

This story is romping away in a thousand different directions. It could be hard to find a through-line, but I think Mart Gray puts it best:

The prevailing tone is optimism, something we’ve not seen in a JLA book for a long time. Our heroes know there’s evil to be fought, but they seem determined to leave the angst behind.

He’s right, this book feels like it’s really turned around.  The writing is good, the art is bold, and the colours are vibrant, everything is allowed to be bolder. However, I can’t help wanting the League to actually get their teeth into the problem (Comic Book Bin calls the story’s pace a “leisurely walk”). Everything is going on around them, but its only at the end of this issue that they square up against the Chair and Tender Mercy.

I like the thousand different cameos and nods to DC history – its a feature of James Robinson’s work and was one of the things that gave Starman such a fantastically rich background. The flash backs to the Challengers and the Freedom Fighters were fun, but the mystery of these strange objects doesn’t feel like its any closer to a resolution. I don’t always agree with Doug’s reviews at CBR, but he does make an interesting observation:

Robinson appears to be trying like hell to make this the DC Universe book. After all, we’ve got everyone from Darwin Jones to Congorilla in here. That’s a brilliant concept, but it seems jarring for this team coming out of the gate. I’d like to see a little smaller focus in order to give me a reason to care about this team.

By far and away the most interesting element of this story are the new villains – an entire set of villains patterned after the New Gods. It has been suggested that these could be versions of the New Gods from one of the reverse Earths, but I’m not so sure that the New Gods are duplicated on a Multiversal level – I always thought that they were above that level of reality. The parallel with the New Gods is obvious, but I wonder if there isn’t a Darkseid connection there as well – who else would have a group like this trained and sponsored. If it wasn’t Darkseid then it had to be one of his lieutenant like Granny Goodness or Desaad.

The Verdict

	Site	Reviewer	Original Score	%
Reviews Portal	Comic Book Resources	Doug Zawisza	1.5/5	30
Reviews Portal	IGN	Tyler Parker	4.8/10	48
Community Reviews	Comics Vine User Reviews	Ave of 2 review/s	3.5/5	70
Community Reviews	iFanboy	387 pulls	3.4/5	68
Character Site	Superman Homepage	Michael Bailey	4 (story) & 4 (art)/5	80
Reviews Blog	Comic Book Bin	Koppy McFad	6.5/10	65
Reviews Blog	A Comic Book Blog	Wayland	70/100	70
Reviews Blog	Comics Per Day Reviews	Timbotron	Good	80
Reviews Blog	Major Spoilers	Matthew Peterson	3/5	60
This Site	Captain’s JLA Blog	Jason Kirk		70%
		Grand Average		64%