Justice League of America (vol. 2) #44

Issue Credits

• Writer: James Robinson
• Pencils: Mark Bagley
• Inks: Rob Hunter and Norm Rapmund
• Colour: Ulises Arreola
• Letters: Rob Leigh
• Cover: Mark Bagley, Rob Hunter, and Ulises Arreola
• Variant Cover: David Mack
• Assistant Editor: Rex Ogle
• Associated Editor: Adam Schlagman
• Editor: Eddie Berganza

Synopsis “Devil in the Details”

In “the Kitchen”, the Justice League’s state of the art environment simulator, Batman (Dick Grayson) and Donna Troy spar with Starman (Mikaal Tomas) and Congorilla (Bill) against a holographic version of the Injustice League. They are acclimating themselves with each others abilities when the Watchtower is rocked by a collision with a large green meteor. The hull is breached and Donna is thrown into space. She is rescued by Mikaal and the Watchtower automatically seals the breach. The meteorite eventually crash lands in the Black Forest, Germany where it draws the attention of the Die Rakete-Auslese, but they’re immolated by the Demon Etrigan before they can approach it. The JLA arrive seconds later and the Batman quenches the guardsmen while the other three wrangle Etrigan. Donna eventually gets him into her “Lasso of Persuasion” and compels him to revert back to Jason Blood.

Meanwhile in the JSA’s Headquarters (currently the old JLA base in Happy Harbour), an unconscious Alan Scott is attended by Doctor Midnite and the JSA. Scott is glowing green, but the light is getting brighter as he weakens. The JSA is aware that the JLA is investigating the emerald meteorite, but they are warned by the sorcerer Sebastian Faust that these events are both omens of “the end of the world.”

Jason Blood is disorientated and explains that he had been on a mission for Baron Winters in Budapest when he saw the falling meteorite and was compelled, possessed even, to change into Etrigan and chase after it. He can’t fully explain his own actions. The impact of the meteorite should have devastated Europe, but it landed relatively gently. Blood thanks the League for subduing Etrigan and then leaves them as puts distance between himself and the strange effects of the meteorite. Congorilla and Donna pull apart a weakened fissure in the meteorite to reveal the unconscious body of Jade, Alan Scott’s daughter, cocooned inside

Continuity

• The automated Monitor Womb systems are capable of sealing a major hull breach.
• Mikaal can fly in space.
• Germany is protected by a quartet (at least) of battle-suited guardsmen called Die Rakete-Auslese (the Rocket-Elite) led by Commander Danitz.
• Congo Bill is divorced (he references to a frightening ex-wife with long nails) and speaks German (he was in Austria during World War I spying on the Prussians).

Opinion

Last issue saw the evaporation of the big Justice League down to the present four members. The reaction to that was generally hostile with, as Ralph at the Superman Homepage notes, even the characters in the title doubting its direction. It’s telling that the line that gets cited the most is from this issue is from Etrigan’s baiting of the League:

The “League” you say? I see but zeroes. Rabble more like substitute heroes.

(At last somebody who can write half-descent rhyme for Etrigan.) The almost meta-textural awareness of the characters about their own predicament is intelligent and I like the idea that Donna and Dick are having to try and learn how to work with Mikaal and Bill. It blunts the book’s critics when even the characters are questioning their own status.

Where this issue gains over the previous is that it isn’t a gathering-the-team or crossover-fallout issue. The League, even just a quartet, can really get going on a brand new adventure. While reading this I felt that the title had dealt with its baggage last issue and was now moving forward in a positive fashion. The critics reactions (table below) to this issue were generally more even that last month with an average score around 6-7 out of 10.

The exposition delivered during the training session is a little forced and is more of a coffee shop conversation – but if I were to labour that point I’d be damning a convention used across the entire genre (c.f. the General Glory pastiche in the JLI). However, it is noticeable that the characters with the best dialogue in this story are the ones who aren’t fully human – namely Etrigan and Congorilla. The humans, by contrast, often sound rather wooden. The dialogue so annoyed DS Aresnault of Weekly Comic Book Review that he may not buy the next issue (“if I’m paying $3.99 for a book, I expect the editor to have checked if it was well written”, ouch).

This is a 30-page comic, but those 30-pages are not used very economically. There isn’t much more in here that in a standard 21-page comic. All that extra space provided by the 30-pages is used for big double page expanses that let Mark Bagley draw big. I rather like his take on Etrigan (both writer and artist lifted their game on that character). Doug at CBR definitely attributes an upswing in the art quality to the arrival of a new colourist:

Bagley’s [art] seems less frenetic in this issue and is definitely more complete and not as sketchy. Apparently, the change is in no small part due to the addition of new colorist Ulises Arreola. Welcome aboard, I say.

I haven’t been aware of Mexican colourist Ulises Arreola until now. He’s done some Marvel work (Wolverine: First Class and Marvel Adventures The Avengers) and a few issues of Superman/Batman.

JLA heading in the right direction again. We might actually get somewhere if it can do that for more an a single issue at a time.

The Verdict

	Site	Reviewer	Original Score	%
Reviews Portal	Comic Book Resources	Doug Zawisza	3.5/5	70
Reviews Portal	IGN	Shawn Hill	3/5	60
Reviews Portal	IGN	Jesse Schedeen	4.7/10	47
Community Reviews	Comics Vine User Reviews	Ave of 7 review/s	3.8/5	76
Community Reviews	iFanboy	477 pulls	3.4/5	68
Character Site	Superman Homepage	Ralph Silver	4 (story) & 4 (art)/5	80
Reviews Blog	Comic Book Bin	Herve St-Louis	7/10	70
Reviews Blog	A Comic Book Blog	Wayland	70/100	70
Reviews Blog	Comics Per Day Reviews	Timbotron	Good	80
This Site	Captain’s JLA Blog	Jason Kirk		60%
		Grand Average		68%

Characters

Featured Characters

• The Justice League
  • Batman (Dick Grayson, appeared last issue)
  • Donna Troy (appeared last issue)
  • Congorilla (Congo Bill, joined the JLA last issue)
  • Starman (Mikaal Tomas, joined the JLA last issue)

Guest-Stars

• Jade (Jennifer-Lynn Hayden, last appeared in Brightest Day #0)
• Etrigan (Jason Blood)
• The Justice Society
  • Doctor Mid-Nite (Pieter Cross, appeared last issue)
  • Flash (Jay Garrick, appeared last issue)
  • Green Lantern (Alan Scott, appeared last issue)
  • Jesse Quick (Jesse Chambers)
  • Mister Terrific (Michael Holt)
  • Obsidian (Todd Rice, appeared last issue)
  • Wildcat (Ted Grant, appeared last issue)

Other Characters

• Die Rakete-Auslese: Commander Danitz and three of his men (first appearance)
• Sebastian Faust (a sorcerer, Felix Faust’s son)

Commentary

Jade – Jennifer-Lynn Hayden

Jade and her brother, Obsidian from the Justice Society, are the children of the Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott). He derived his powers from a ring and lantern forged from a fragment of the Starheart. The Starheart comes from the Green Lantern Corps mythology. The Guardians of the Universe prepared the way for their super-science police force by gathering into a single orb all of the lingering non-rational/non-scientific wild magic left in the Universe. It’s called the Starheart because the Guardians hid it inside of a conventional star. We’ll probably get a recap/retcon of the Starheart’s origins next issue.

The power of the Starheart mutated Alan Scott’s children so that they manifested power over light (Jade) and shadow (Obsidian). Jade use to date Green Lantern Kyle Rayner and was even a member of the Green Lantern Corps for a time. According to the Monitors, Donna Troy, Kyle Rayner’s previous girlfriend, was meant to have died during the Infinite Crisis, but a ripple in reality meant that Jade died instead and Donna was left as an anomaly. A second Jade, a graduate of Lex Luthor’s Everyman Program appeared during 52, but hasn’t been seen since.

Jade was one of the twelve returned to life during the events surrounding the end of Blackest Night #8. She next appeared in Brightest Day #0 where she is being put through her paces by Green Lantern Soranik Natu – a Doctor and Kyle Rayner’s current girlfriend. Jade senses the connection between Kyle and Natu and says she won’t get in the way. Kyle tells her that there are a lot of people who will be excited to see her. However, the next time we see Jade is when that meteorite opens at the end of this Justice League issue.

Notes

• The cover and story title have Brightest Day banners. This issue takes place after JSA #40 wherein the JSA finish fighting the Fourth Reich and after Jade’s appearance in Brightest Day #0.
• This issue shipped several weeks late to the UK and Europe as international air freight, and passenger transport, was shut down by an ash plume from an Icelandic volcano.
• Does Congo Bill have a surname?

Annotations

• 1.1 – Holographic villains: Joker and Killer Croc
• 2.1 – Holographic villains: (l-to-r) Killer Croc (hand only), Joker, Manbat, Lex Luthor (visor down). Giganata, Captain Cold, Deathstroke, Deadshot, Sinestro, Black Adam (lassoed), Bizarro (fighting Starman)
• 2-3.1 – Mikaal was originally Starman for one issue in the 1970s (First Issue Special #12, March 1976) and didn’t reappear until James Robinson brought him back in the 1990s. The reason he doesn’t like circuses is that he spent the intervening years as a unwilling exhibit in a grotesque freak show. He was eventually freed by Jack Knight.
• 2-3.3 – Congorilla was originally just a normal – if golden – gorilla with which adventurer and big game hunter Congo Bill could switch minds. Bill’s human body was killed in Justice League: Cry for Justice #1 (Sept 2009). Mauro Cascioli, artist on that series, drew Congorilla’s height relative to other characters so erratically that James Robinson decided to include it as a new superpower. Mighty Joe Young was a 1949 film, remade in 1998, that cashed in on the King Kong craze. Joe was large, but nowhere near Kong’s size.
• 4-5.1 – The gem stone is a “Sonic Crystal” and was originally a weapon that Mikaal was meant to have used during the invasion of Earth. The rather Bohemian Mikaal rebelled against that destiny and had the thing melted into his flesh for his pains. It functions much like a Knight-style cosmic rod.
• 12-13.2: German Translations: “How long until we reach the target?”, “Thirty seconds, Commander Danitz.”, “Well, I’m very excited –“
• 12-13.3: German Translation: “Ahhhhh!”
• 16-17.1: Grayson identifies the rocket-suited Germans as Die Rakete-Auslese – “the Rocket Elite” and describes them as “German Elite Guard” .
• 18-19.5 – Possible foreshadowing: Etrigan knows how Congo Bill can become human again.
• 20-21.3 – Wonder Woman’s Lasso is the “Lasso of Truth”, Wonder Girl has been using a Lasso that delivers lighting shocks, but Donna’s lasso – as revealed for the first time – is the “Lasso of Persuasion” which is understandable considering that she is normally the leader, the den-mother, the character that has to gather the team together be they Justice League, Titans, or Teen Titans.
• 22.2 – The “Fourth Reich” were the villains in the latest JSA storyline. They created a divergent timeline where the Nazis won WWII and invaded North America.
• 24.1 – Sebastian Faust is the son of the old JLA villain Felix Faust. Felix sold his son’s soul to the Devil for power, but the Devil double crossed Felix and gave the power to Sebastian. Sebastian is nominally a good guy and was part of a loose association of mages and magic-based heroes with Alan Scott called the Sentinel of Magic.
• 25.2 – Baron Winters is the owner of a house called Wintergate Manor, a mansion near Washington DC. The Baron would manipulation and coerce various magic users into carrying out missions for him under the banner of the Night Force.
• 27.2 – “Using that ring to change minds with a big golden gorilla might not be such a wise move” – that really was how Congo Bill operated originally. He had a special ring that be could rub which would transplant him mind into Congorilla’s body.