Justice League: Generation Lost #16

Issue Credits

Writer: Judd Winick
Penciller: Fernando Dagnino
Inker: Raul Fernandez
Colourist, Variant Cover Colourist: Hi-Fi
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Cover Artist: Dustin Nguyen
Variant Cover Artist: Kevin Maguire
Editor: Rex Ogle, Brian Cunningham

Quotes

Captain Atom: We need to assess if this is a formal attack or a distraction!Blue Beetle: Could it be both? ‘Cause I’m being attacked and distracted!

Maxwell Lord (as he teleports away with the Blue Beetle): It’s okay Bea, I’ll take real good care him.

Synopsis “Scary Monsters”

Previously: Maxwell Lord – the ex-director of Checkmate and the JLI – seeks to assassinate Wonder Woman in revenge for her killing him (i’ts complex), but he is exasperated that nobody remembers that she ever existed (it’s also complex). The JLI now know this. They had sought a moment of sanctuary at their former Australian headquarters, but Max refuses to let them rest and sends the Creature Commandos to attack them.

The Commandos and a legion of J.A.K.E. robots have surrounded the JLI’s Headquarters. Captain Atom tells the Blue Beetle, Rocket Red, and Booster Gold not to hurt them as they’re just soldiers following orders. This is complicated by the Commandos’ Egyptian mummy medic who keeps patching them up as fast as the JLI can knock them down. Captain Atom notices that the Commandos aren’t talking to each other and concludes that Max must be somewhere close-by controlling them directly. Booster over rules him and tells Beetle to collect Fire and Ice so they can retreat.

Batman and Power Girl are preparing to investigate Magog’s death when they are contacted by Checkmate. The Black and White Kings ask them to withhold their investigation as they believe that Magog had been duped into thinking he was working for them and imply that Captain Atom may have been framed for his murder. The heroes agree to postpone their intervention, but Batman tell’s Power Girl that they should keep a close eye on the guilty looking Checkmate.

Inside the JLI’s Headquarters Fire and Ice had seen off a separate group of J.A.K.Es, but Fire had been badly injured by gunfire and Ice is now desperately searching the medical bay for something to stop her bleeding to death. As Fire lies dying she confesses to Ice that she’s done a lot of bad things while working for Checkmate and that she believes that when she dies she’s “going to hell.” Beetle finds them, but Ice tells him that Fire is too weak to be moved. He then remembers seeing the miraculous abilities of the Commandos’ medic so he grabs him from the conflict outside. They manage to wrap Fire in his bandages just as Medusa and more JAKE robots arrive inside. Medusa disables Ice and Beetle just as Fire is healed. However Max then reveals that he’s been disguised as one of the JAKEs, just before he teleports away with the helpless Blue Beetle.

Opinion

These large set piece battles punctuate this series (the flight from the OMACS/Rocket Reds early on, the attack on Checkmate, etc) and are generally used to keep the action quotient up. Nevertheless, the Bright Hub review does make the point that it’s time for the heroes to start winning at bit:

Recently, it seems that each issue a new hero or group of heroes is being manipulated by Max as he tries to eliminate the JLI. We’ve seen the Metal Men, the Creature Commandos, Magog, and Checkmate all controlled by Max as he fights the JLI. It’s time for the heroes to fight back!

These battles also serve to keep the JLI off guard and moving – they may think they’re acting on their own, but each is part of Max’s scheme to keep them disoriented. Maybe that’s why he brought them together again as individually they would be harder to track and contain.

The Creature Commandos always liven up any guest appearance, but I was disappointed that they weren’t more chatty. I get it that Max was controlling them, but I guess I’ve gotten use to really chatty Judd Winick villains/characters. Then again the Commandos are such a pure concept – a platoon of b-movie monsters – that they don’t really need much exposition. Dustin Nguyen’s atmospheric Creature Commandos cover is great, as JonesDenini on Comicvine says it the “Black/White/Red color scheme stands out without being too flashy”.

There is only one penciller and inker credited for this issue, but it almost feels like there are two art teams at work. One of them uses a lot of dark shadowing around faces (e.g. the Checkmate/Batman scene and the first Fire/Ice scene), but the other feels a little more fluid and generally lighter. (For example take the appearance of the Black King on Page 4 compared to Page 5) I like the second style, but the first is a little odd. It may just be that the colouring isn’t going as far into shadow as the inking implies.

The Verdict

	Site	Reviewer	Original Score	%
Community Reviews	Comics Vine User Reviews	Ave of 4 review/s	4.125/5	83
Community Reviews	iFanboy	440 pulls	4.2/5	84
Character Site	Boosterrific!	Boosterrific.com	5/5	100
Reviews Blog	Comics Per Day Reviews		Fair	60
Reviews Blog	Inside Pulse	Grey Scherl	8.5/10	85
Reviews Blog	Rapid Review (Bright Hub)	Misto1481	B+	70
This Site	Captain’s JLA Blog	Jason Kirk		60%
		Grand Average		77%

Characters

Featured Characters

Justice League International

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, appeared last issue)

Guest Stars

Batman (Dick Grayson, next appears in Power Girl #18)
Power Girl (Karen Starr, next appears in Power Girl #18)

The Creature Commandos

J.A.K.E.s

Villains

Maxwell Lord (appeared last issue)

Other Characters

Alton Janus (the White King of Checkmate, last appeared in issue #8)
Taleb Ben Khalid (the Black King of Checkmate, last appeared in issue #8)

Annotations

Page 1 - The phrase “Shock and Awe” comes from one of the writings of the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu, but the specific military doctrine (more properly known as “rapid dominance” is a post-Cold War doctrine. It was developed by the United State’s Military and was much heralded by Washington as their strategy for the invasion of Iraq. Opinions on its success (or otherwise) vary.

The issue of soldiers’ lives is forefront in Captain Atom’s mind during his battle. He was a soldier himself and makes the point that the Commandos are “our soldiers”. Magog was also a US Soldier, a man whom Atom watched kill himself under Max’s command and who’s death Captain Atom is now blamed for.

Rocket Red’s point about being attacked by the good guys references their recent battles with the Rocket Red Brigade, Checkmate, the Metal Men, and even Magog.

Project M and the Creature Commandos have their origins in a story set during World War II. It was written by J.M. DeMatteis, the scripter of the original JLI stories, and first appeared in Weird War Tales #93 (November 1980). It presented a platoon of disfigured/monster soldiers who were designed to literally scare the enemy to death.

The robotic soldier that is fighting alongside them is J.A.K.E. Originally a succession of different one-off robots it seems that Project M has finally perfected its mass production. J.A.K.E. wasn’t originally part of the Commandos. It first appeared as the G.I. Robot in a series of stories in the 1960s and 1980s by writer Robert Kanigher. He introduced the first modern version in Weird War Tales #101 (July 1981) and its Mark II model was later added to the Creature Commandos. The original Commandos and J.A.K.E. were lost in space at the end of their run in Weird War Tales.

Maxwell Lord has a history with Project M. Way back in the 1990s, at the end of the run of Justice League America Max’s original body died. However, his mind was digitized by the artificial intelligence that had originally recruited him to set up the JLI. Max usurped his benefactor and created a new robotic body for himself – one that was identical in appearance to his original biological body. Max then dropped off the radar and eventually reappeared as the bad guy behind Checkmate. It was revealed in Booster Gold‘s series that Project M was one of the agencies that Max used to clone himself a new flesh and blood body (the one he’s currently running around in). His old robot body was left behind and converted by Checkmate to be their own J.A.K.E.

Page 4-5 – The history of Fire’s father was revealed during her time with Checkmate and was touched upon in issue #3 of this series (see the annotations for issue #3 for more details). It was also in issue #3 that the problems with her mother were first mentioned.

Fire has been to Hell before in “I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Justice League”, the follow-up to Formerly Known as the Justice League. Ice was dead at the time and the JLI found her spirit in Hell. The Demon told them that they could leave with her as long as they didn’t look back at her as they walked out (a take on the myth of Orpheus). Unfortunately Fire wasn’t strong enough and glimpsed back briefly. That broke the pact and apparently damned Ice’s soul. The demons were of course messing with them, but Fire was devastated.

Pages 6-8 - Power Girl says that “we were about to bust a brain-dead arms dealer”. Max has been playing with Power Girl. He has appropriated her company’s funds and assets by framing and then murdering her accountant Donna Anderson. Then with Professor Ivo he has created a near-clone of Power Girl called Divine using data collected during a fight between PG and a synthetic android called CRASH. The arms dealer PG is referring to is one whom tried to sell the android before it reactivated. He’s gets busted in Power Girl #18 and the phrasing of her speech here makes it sound like that hasn’t happened yet.

The Checkmate Black King (their director of field operations) is called TALED BEN KHALID. Not only do they continue to call him KHALID-ISR (-ISR is short for Israel it’s his nationality, not his name), but they introduce another spelling error by calling him Beni rather than Ben. Do they have it in for this character or something? In issue #8 it was the White King (the director of political affairs), Alton Janus, who talked Khalid out of pursing the JLI after they attacked Checkmate as he feared the political fallout if the world realised that their headquarters had so easily been breached.

The only people what were shown to know that Magog believed he was working for Checkmate were Max and Magog. Max has also been shown as being resident at Checkmate castle. It seems improbable that he would allow Checkmate knowledge of Magog’s erroneous connection to them unless he was deliberately trying to keep PG and Batman from contracting the JLI. PG and Batman reference Checkmate asking them to stand down in Power Girl #19 when they are talking to Magog’s former team-mates in the JSA All-Stars. Power Girl and Batman have once before (in issue #10) been on the verge of rumbling Max, but his post-hypnotic command wiped their memories of his again. They will do the same again in Power Girl #19 when they talk to the JSA All-Stars, but once again Max’s command wipes their memories.

Page 9 - Jaime use of a compressed air cannon to “blow” away the Creature Commandos is a reference to a weapon that his predecessor Ted Kord use to carry as the Blue Beetle. Ted carried a compressed air and light strobe gun. They were more of a distraction than an actual weapon and often weren’t taken seriously by his JLI teammates.

The Commando’s medic, Aten, was first shown in the near-future Creature Commandos mini-series.

Page 17 - Medusa – the “real” Medusa – was a monster from Greek myth whose gaze turned men to stone. The DC Universe Medusa, like Maxwell Lord, was killed by Wonder Woman. From WW’s perspective she doesn’t slay people, only monsters. I find it interesting that Ice doesn’t know who Medusa is, but I’m not sure why.

Page 19 - Max has a history with Blue Beetles as he was responsible for the murder of Jamie’s predecessor.