Justice League: Generation Lost #4

Issue Credits

Scripter

Judd Winick

Breakdowns

Keith Giffen

Penciller

Joe Bennett

Inker

Jack Jadson

Colourist, Variant Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

Swands

Cover Artist

Tony Harris

Cover Colourist

J.D. Mettler

Variant Cover Artist

Kevin Maguire

Assistant Editor

Rex Ogle

Editor

Michael Siglain

Synopsis: “The Rocket’s Red Glare”

[Previously: Maxwell Lord has managed to hypnotize the world into thinking that he never existed. However, four of his former friends - Captain Atom, Booster Gold, Ice, and Fire - were immune to his power and are now on the run after Lord turned the rest of the world against them. The new Blue Beetle has become their disgruntled ally after Lord's OMACs attacked his family.  ]

Atom, Gold, Ice and Beetle find themselves dropped into a Russian forest somewhere near St Petersberg after losing track of a group of OMACs that had attacked Jamie’s family (Issue #3). Their discussions over their predicament are cut short when they find themselves under fire by a squad from the Rocket Red Brigade – the Russian super-soldier corps. However, the Russian soldiers are actually in pursuit of another Rocket Red, and the American heroes are just in the wrong place. They were actually pursing Gavril Ivanovich, a pro-communist former Rocket Red Captain who became an outlaw for fighting the Westernisation of his country.

The former Leaguers are hesitant to get involved with the official Russian security forces, but the abandonment and recklessness they show whilst pursuing Ivanovich forces their hand. They weight into the fight to protect the nearby civilians and are quickly joined by Fire who arrives after escaping from Checkmate Castle. Elsewhere, Taleb Beni Khalid, her superior within Checkmate, passes along responsibility for Fire’s capture to Batman and the Justice League. However, the Batman is suspicious about why he and Checkmate subconsciously “feel” like they should let her go.

The new Rocket Red is over joyed to see Captain Atom and the others and declares them all to be the “Justice League International!!” However, they have to drag him out of the populated area before the other Rocket Reds gather their wits. Once the Rocket Red’s are defeated, Ivanovich resumes trying to convince them that they are indeed a team, a reborn JLI. Fire and Ice resist the idea, but its Booster who points out that they’ve been manoeuvred into becoming a group. He believes that Maxwell Lord has deliberately engineered the events that have introduced them to the new Blue Beetle and Rocket Red and that he has monitored their progress and conversations.

Meanwhile, Maxwell Lord has being having a very bad day. He has visited Dr Tatum Ranch’s laboratory to discuss his “nanotype genetic enhancement research.” However, Max inadvertently kills Tatum when he tries to mind control him. An energy pours out of Tantum, killing him, and leaving a corpse that resembles a black lantern (complete with costume and chest emblem). Max keeps trying and has killed several more scientists by the time that he overhears – via his radio link to the defeated Rocket Reds – Booster calling him out. Max then radios the heroes and asks “Okay, Booster… what would you like to know?”

Continuity

• Maxwell Lord’s mind control powers are playing up.
• There is a new Rocket Red. The self-styled Rocket Red #7 is Gavril Ivanovich. Skeet’s describes him as:

He is considered an Enemy of the [Russian] State. From the intel I am gathering [from his blog] he is a former Captain in the Rocket Red Brigade, but resigned. He considers himself a true communist, and thus, is disgusted with the Westernization of his country. He has declared himself a revolutionary, fashioned his own armour and taken to destroying “all corporate cancer and traitors” that rots his nation. He wrecks  western influences like fast food chains and corporate businesses, but also attacks K.G.B. cells who have been attempting to seize control government control.

Commentary – Digital Launch

This issue released as part of the launch of DC Comics’ digital platform. Marvel Comics have had their own online system in place for a while and have expanded into the mobile space (the so called “app” model used on cell phones and tablet PCs) with the launch of a Marvel Comics app for the Apple Computer’s iOS platforms (iPhone and iPad.) DC caught up by partnering with the comics.comixology.com website and by launching their own iOS apps using Comixology’s technology. It’s the same underlying system that Marvel uses for their Marvel Comics App and Comixology’s own app, just rebranded with DC Comics’ logo.

A range of old and newer DC titles, some free, some paid-for were available on the day of launch, but it was notable that Justice League: Generation Lost #4 was the only one to actually be published through the comics shop on that same day (the so called “day and date” release). However, issue #4 retained its print price tag of $2.99 while the other three issues, which were also part of the launch, had the cheaper $1.99 price tag.

Newsarama did a piece on the selection of Generation Lost #4 and spoke to Judd Winick about its inclusion.

I speak for everyone on ‘the team’ of Justice League: Generation Lost (and there are a lot of us) when I say that we’re all very honored and thrilled that DC has chosen our title as the first ongoing series to premiere both in print and digitally. It is both a vote of confidence in the work we’re doing and the story we’re telling, as well as an exciting opportunity to reach new readers. We’re all seriously jazzed.

[...]

As I’ve said before, Justice League: Generation Lost is a long form, serialized story. We’re not doing arcs; this bad boy reads like a book. One chapter at a time, one foot following the other. I think digitally, we’re capturing the immediacy of the story, further underlined by the the fact that we’re coming out bi-weekly. We’re doing a lot of story that comes to reader faster than a standard monthly. It’s a great fit for Gen Lost.

The choice to use Generation Lost for the launch experiment should be seen as quite smart. Its two weekly schedule, being faster than the usual monthly schedule, is going to work better at getting people to come back regularly. Yet it’s not such a high-profile book – as the Brightest Day, DC’s other fortnightly title, is – that its release online will materially harm the high street stores that DC relies on for the majority of its sales. For example, ICv2′s sales estimates for May put Generation Lost #1 and 2 at 51 and 44 thousand copies each, whereas Brightest Day #1 and 2 were double that at 103 and 90 thousand copies each. (These are sales to comic stores, not direct to the public, so one has to wonder if most stores were just estimating that they could sell half as many of Generation Lost as they could Brightest Day).

Opinion

On the Digital Comic experience

My local comics shop had actually under-estimated how much stock they’d need and sold out of Generation Lost #4 by the time I picked my comics. The only place I could read it on the day of release was online so I was actually quite pleased for DC’s digital strategy. I tweeted a review of the site as I used it and concluded that:

I take it back — this site isn’t fast – it’s blisteringly fast. Very surprising, but welcome. Image size is significantly larger than the normal web-previews, colours are crisp and bright. Page turn is fast. Overall I’m quite impressed with what they’ve done so far. That said, the interface is woefully basic and its locked into a web-browser. Let me download the comic and I’ll be happy, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to trust my entire collection to the cloud just yet.

My initial reservations still remain. You’ve (I’ve) paid $2.99 to read the comic through their website, but we don’t actually have a copy of it on our own computers. Each time we want to re-read it we have to download it again within Comixology’s little sandbox. We can’t then go off and read it in Comic Rack or one of the other legion of CBR readers out there. This isn’t a big deal if you’re sticking to to iOS apps, but its a big deal on the PC desktop as the flash-based web-reader isn’t very advanced. It also relies on Comixology’s servers still being there tomorrow.

On the story itself

Putting aside the Digital Comics aspect of this issue, I rather liked it. The quote above from Judd Winick mentions that they’re “not doing arcs”, but this issue does feel like its the end of an opening chapter. The gang is back together, their situation had been explored, and we are on the verge of finding out why. It really feels like the story is going somewhere – just after I was worrying last issue that they were in danger of repeating themselves. The increase in plot and pace is picked by by Doug at CBR:

“Justice League: Generation Lost” has had a slow start, but after four issues, some tread is starting to grip the road and this story seems ready to start really rolling. With the team (which refuses to acknowledge that they are, indeed, a team) now up to an even half-dozen, I’m curious as to who’s waiting in the wings to help the cause. Batman seems like a logical candidate. One thing is for certain, I’ll be checking in to see what’s happening.

However, Tyler at IGN didn’t take to the “tedious middle portion that wanders aimlessly” and as X-Man puts it “an extended battle between a bunch of Rocket Reds, while the JLI members stood around and watched.” I’m not too sure if I agree, it was important to show the individuals acting together heroically – against the authorities – as a group. What I did feel was a little disappointing was that the set piece battle against the Rocket Reds was resolved off screen – they’re running from the Rockets when we cut away to Batman, but have defeated them by the time we return.

I rather like the new Rocket Red. The original had a running joke about how he was from a Communist country and was trying to “pepper his lingo” this hip American phrases. In a reversal, this new Rocket Red is a communist in a Westernised world and has speech littered with Soviet dogma. The idea could get old very quickly, but he feels right. It is also nice to see Batman – even if it’s just Dick Grayson – start to question his activities. The “real” Batman was accurately aware of when his memory was being manipulated so its nice to see that his sidekick had finally got a clue.

The interior art is handled Joe Bennett, who did the pencils for issue #2. Zack at Comicvine calls his art a “a joy to look at” and most reviewers like his strong superheroic style. It’s certainly better than issue #2. I think this is the first Tony Harris cover that I’ve preferred to the Kevin Maguire covers. The connection the 1930/40s era Soviet propaganda posters really plays into the strongest aspect of Harris’s art – this keen sense of design and shape.

The Verdict

	Site	Reviewer	Original Score	%
Reviews Portal	Comic Book Resources	Doug Zawisza	3.5/5	70
Reviews Portal	IGN	Tyler Parker	7/10	70
Community Reviews	Comics Vine User Reviews	Ave of 2 review/s	4.75/5	95
Community Reviews	iFanboy	408 pulls	4.2/5	84
Character Site	Boosterrific!	Boosterrific.com	4/5	80
Reviews Blog	Comic Book Bin	Herve St-Louis	8/10	80
Reviews Blog	Comics Per Day Reviews	Timbotron	Excellent	100
This Site	Captain’s JLA Blog	Jason Kirk		60%
		Grand Average		80%

Characters

Featured Characters

• Blue Beetle (Jamie Reyes, appeared last issue)
• Booster Gold (Michael Jon Carter, appeared last issue)
• Captain Atom (Nate Adam, appeared last issue)
• Fire (Beatriz DaCosta, appeared last issue)
• Ice (Tora Olafsdotter, appeared last issue)
• Rocket Red (Gavril Ivanovich, first appearance)

Other Heroes

• Batman (Dick Grayson – assumed – last appeared in this series in issue #2)
• Rocket Red Brigade

Villains

• Maxwell Lord (rogue ex-JLI/Checkmate director, last appeared in-person in issue #1)

Other Characters

• Doctor Tatum Ranch (geneticist, first and only appearance, killed his issue)
• Colonel Taleb Beni Khalid-Isr (Checkmate’s Black King, appeared last issue).

Annotations

1.1 Tatum Ranch, the name of the scientist, is the name of a real place near Phoenix, Arizona.

1.2 “Nanobyte  genetic enhancement research” isn’t elaborated in this issue. The word does pop-up in Power Girl #13, also by Judd Winick, also out this month – which would suggest that his undisclosed location is actually owned by Starrware (Power Girl’s company).

2.6 Max’s powers aren’t working properly. The same thing has happened to Aquaman, one of the other resurrected heroes and villains, in Brightest Day. Aquaman has found that he can only command dead sea-life (zombie animals).

3.1 The Rocket Red Brigade is the Russian (formerly Soviet) super-soldier programme. They first appeared Green Lantern Corps #208 (Jan 1987) and were created by Steve Englehart and Joe Staton. The Brigade were created with help from the Green Lantern Kilowog when he was living on Earth and became fascinated with the communist political system. The USA and Russia only agreed to the establishment of the JLI if their own heroes were included. Captain Atom was the American representative, Rocket Red #7 Vladimir Mikoyan was to have the Russian representative. However, Mikoyan was almost immediately revealed to be a Manhunter agent.

Mikoyan’s replacement was Rocket Red #7 Dimitri Pushkin. Dimitri’s original armour was destroyed by Lobo and was replaced by a suit of armour from Apokolips. He is the Rocket Red that everybody fondly remembers.

Unfortunately Dimitri was killed fighting OMACs – the same cyborgs that attacked Blue Beetle – during the Infinite Crisis. The rest of the Rocket Red Brigade did not fare so well and they were badly hit by the chaos associated with the fall of the USSR. However, post-Infinite Crisis, they’ve been shown more or less back to full strength.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the Russian on the suits shows the name of the occupant. I believe that 00 is Bennett – as in Joe Bennett the penciller.  The one beneath him is Joe Jadson. I’m unsure as to one to the right of the panel.

4-5.4 The new Rocket Red is Gavrol Ivanovich. The similarity between Ivanovich’s armour and that of Dimitri Pushkin is obvious with the segmented leg and arm bands, dome like helmet, and cables running to the gauntlets. However, unlike the newer Rocket Red armour, Ivanovich’s armour retains the C.C.C.P. initials across the helmet. His number is coincidentally the same as Vladimir Mikoyan, the Manhunter agent who betrayed the JLI and the Rocket Red Brigade.

9.1 Notice that it’s Booster Gold who’s complaining about the Rocket Red’s lack of planning when it was Power Girl who was accusing him of almost exactly the same thing in issue #1.

17.1 The Checkmate Black King’s last name is again given as Khalid-Isr. As I postulated last time around, I believe the Isr is mistake carried over from a reference where his abbreviated nationality (Israeli, i.e. – Isr) was listed after his name.