Episode Credits

Cast

Artemis

Stephanie Lemelin

Robin

Jesse McCartney

Miss Martian

Danica McKellar

Superboy, Marvin White

Nolan North

Aqualad

Khary Payton

Kid Flash

Jason Spisak

Zatanna

Lacey Chabert

Harm

Ben Diskin

Red Arrow

Crispin Freeman

Batman

Bruce Greenwood

Captain Marvel

Chad Lowe

Secret, Wendy Harris, Karen Beecher

Masasa Moyo

Mal Duncan, Jim Daniels

Kevin Michael Richardson

Lucas Carr

Greg Weisman

Crew

Writer

Peter David

Director

Jay Oliva

Music, Theme Music

Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis

Voice Direction

Jamie Thomason

Animation Timing Director

James Tim Walker

Storyboard

Jay Baker, Jake Castorena, Tim Divar, Ki-Doo Kim, Owen Sullivan

Lead Character Design

Phil Bourassa

Character Design

Dusty Abell, Jerome Moore, Coran Stone

Prop Design

Alex Kubalsky, Eugene Mattos

Animation Services

Lotto Animation Inc.

Animation Director

Heechul Kang (supervising), Junsik Cho, Daegu Heh, Hyeoksoo Lee

Producer

Brandon Vietti, Greg Weisman

Executive Producer

Sam Register

Quotes

Harm: Mediocrity such as this is never far from Harm!

Synopsis “Secrets”

31st October -- There been a break in at New York City’s Met, but Detective Jim Daniels is incredulous that only one object, the “Sword of Beowulf”, an ancient Anglo-saxon sword held in a claw-like scabbard, has been stolen. The curator of the exhibit tells the detective about the mythical powers of the sword which he says can only be unlocked by a person “pure of heart” who says a special phrase in Old English. The thief, who repeatedly refers to himself as “Harm” in the third person, is still in the building (“Still, Harm should be grateful. Harm did need the words”). The sword’s scabbard opens upon Harm’s recitation of the phrase and he draws out the sword. An orange light passes from the Sword to Harm and lodges where his heart should be. A stunned curator asks how Harm could possible be “Pure of Heart”, but is reminded that the myth didn’t specify “pure good”, just “pure”.

At Mount Justice, Megan (Miss Martian) has invited the Team to the Happy Harbour High-School Halloween dance. Wally (Kid Flash) is already in costume and flirting with Megan, but he is oblivious to the fact that she and Conner (Superboy) are a couple. Captain Marvel, who has been hanging around the Team a lot, shows up under the mistaken belief that Megan’s invitation also extended to him. He eventually catches on that he wasn’t invited and teleports out saying he’s going trick-or-treating on his own (Marvel is actually a 10-year old in an adult’s body, but the Team don’t know that). Zatanna and Artemis teleport in just before Marvel leaves and Zatanna instantly spots that Conner and Megan are acting like a couple. Artemis tries to laugh off her observation, but walks away when she realises that Zatanna is correct. Artemis had held a secret crush for Conner and is surprised/depressed by the news he is dating Megan. Artemis doesn’t want to go to the dance anymore so Zatanna suggests a girls night out fighting crime instead.

Conner, Superboy, and Wally hit the Halloween dance and, to Conner’s frustration, find that the majority of the other students are actually dressed as members of the Justice League. They are greeted by Wendy, Karen, and Mal, but their other friend Marvin is worried about reports of a Martian Invasion which keeps appearing on the student’s mobile phones. Their teacher, Lucas Carr, scoffs at the idea and points out that the Martian Manhunter is a member of the Justice League. The party has been going a while when the lights suddenly go out. The students then get another wave of Martian invasion alerts. Mr Carr again tells them its a cliché, but he is interrupted by an announcement over the speakers. The voice claims to be from the Department of Homeland Security and tells everybody to stay inside the building. Wally is just about to call the Cave when Conner spots the prankster with his infra-red vision.

Robin and Aqualad are absent from the party as they are back at base with Red Tornado, Batman, and the visiting Red Arrow debating the Sportsmaster’s claim to have a mole inside the Team. Aqualad believes Sportsmaster was just trying to sow dissent, but Red Arrow isn’t convinced and says that Artemis has lied about being Green Arrow’s niece. Aqualad is surprised, but Batman cuts off Robin before he can reveal Artemis’ true parentage. Batman is more concerned about Superboy, who may still possess programming from his time in Cadmus that even he isn’t ware of. However, Aqualad says he fought “side-by-side” with each of them and again refuses to believe that any of them are traitors.

Zatanna and Artemis hit Manhattan on the back of two of the Team’s motor-bikes. Their patrol takes them past the Museum where the police are still out in force. Artemis refuses to talk about Conner and Megan and insists she just needs something to hit. The opportunity presents itself then they stop a mugging, a grocery store robbery, and an attack on a young woman by four men. However, Harm is watching their crime fighting from the rooftops. He is in turn watched by a pale, silent girl. Harm finally introduces himself to Zatanna and Artemis by blowing-up their parked bikes and then advancing on them out of the flames. “Harm isn’t impressed” by Artemis’s arrows or Zatanna’s magic, but he intends to study them before fighting the Justice League proper. Zatanna spots the pale girl beckoning them from an alleyway so she and Artemis beat a strategic withdrawal. They follow the girl to the roof tops, but she is always just out of reach and the only word is ever says is “secret.”

Secret vanishes just as Harm catches up with Artemis and Zatanna. They delay him with ice for a few seconds, but Harm is relentless. Artemis challenges Harm to a fight without their weapons, but she in unable to land a single blow on him. Harm monologues during the fight and infuriates Artemis by criticizing her lack of focus (“It struggles with inner demons. It can’t fight Harm while fighting itself. Harm doesn’t battle his demons, Harm embraces them.”). He continues twittering on about the sacrifices he’s made to become pure enough to wield the Sword of Beowulf, but that just gives girls time to evade him and escape with the reappeared Secret. She directs them to a place they think it’s a random location, but Harm reveals that they have actually found his home. He attacks them again and the last thing that Artemis sees before she passes out is Harm and the Secret standing over her.

Back in Happy Harbour, Marvin stops three of the younger students from leaving the dance by telling them he’s been told to keep them inside for their own protection. Marvin is the prankster behind the invasion message, but it is his turn to be pranked when Wally runs up to him screaming “The Martian’s are coming! The Martian’s are coming!” A giant spectral things from another world with glowing green eyes then appears behind Wally. Conner makes a show of hurrying Marvin inside away from danger while he holds off the invader. It throws Conner around with its telekinesis prompting Marvin runs screaming into the dance hall. He tells everybody that he was behind the prank and then tries to convince them that Martians have really invaded. However, he’s left confounded and confused when Conner and Wally reappear as if nothing had happened.

When Artemis regains consciousness she finds that she is tied to chair and that Harm is talking to her. A television shows Zatanna tied to a chair in another room with a cross-bow pointed her. Harm threatens Zatanna unless Artemis tells him her secrets. He demands to know how they found his house, but Harm swears that he has no partner when Artemis mentions the Secret. While Harm is distracted, Secret removes Zatanna’s gag so she can use a spell to free herself from the ropes. Zatanna is in a little girl’s bedroom and finds a photograph showing harm and Secret as apparently loving siblings. Zatanna asks Secret about her connection to Harm, but the only thing she says, the only thing she ever says, is “secret”. Harm has finally noticed that Zatanna is free, but he falls for her illusion while she is freeing Artemis. Harm then gets his first fleeing glimpse of Secret as he follows the three girls to the kitchen door. Artemis then covers their escape by setting of an explosion which engulfs the entire ground floor of the house.

Zatanna and Artemis are surprised to find a small grave in the house’s back garden. It is marked by fresh flowers and a rough plank of wood on which is carved “Greta Hayes. Beloved sister.” The two girls step back in fright when the translucent image of the Secret rises out of the grave. It is now clear that Secret is the ghost of Greta Hayes, the sister of the villain that has been chasing them. She nods to acknowledge her identity and produces an image of her brother’s dagger when asked how she died. Harm finds them and challenges them to stay away from “Harm’s holy place.” Artemis accuses him of killing his own sister, but Harm is unrepentant. Greta was the only thing good in his life, but to make himself pure – pure evil so that he could wield the Sword of Beowulf – he had to purge that goodness from his heart and in Harm’s twisted mind that meant killing Greta.

Harm is taken aback when Secret/Greta rises from the grave again. He accuses Zatanna of conjuring another illusion, but she points out that she didn’t speak. Secret advances slowly towards Harm and he tries to tell them that he isn’t sorry. Secret walks through his flailing stabs and reaches into his chest to extract light that the Sword of Beowulf had given him. Whether the act is literal or symbolic is not clear, but Harm’s wavering at Greta’s reappearance demonstrates that his heart not as pure as he had thought. The Sword knows this and suddenly goes heavily in Harms hand. He looses grip on the Sword and it is pulled back into its grotesque scabbard. Without the sword Harm is a very easy target for Artemis’ violent righteous indication. With Harm unconscious, the Secret returns to her rest. Zatanna tells her that “We won’t forget you Greta” and that they will make sure she gets a proper burial.

Artemis questions how anybody could murder a relative and she’s about to mention her own family, but stops herself. Zatanna warns her that “secret’s don’t stay buried”, but Artemis clams up again and says she “doesn’t have any secrets.” They then notice a gap in the fence through which it is possible to see a sign on a showing the word “secret”, the very last thing that Greta ever saw and the only word she could say after death.

Continuity

• This episode takes place on the night of All-Hallow’s Eve — Halloween — October 31st.
• Captain Marvel’s teleport code is 15.
• Kid Flash’s wrist is still in plaster due to the injury he received in "Alpha Male".
• The New York zeta-beam point is hidden being a billboard for The Silver Blade.
• The Martian Manhunter has a few hundred nieces and nephews. He and Miss Martian first met five months ago after she stowed away on his last trip to Earth (note that this conflicts with the origin that Miss Martian told the team in [cred ref="young-justice-vol-2|6"] where she ways she won a contest to become his sidekick.
• Artemis carries extra-strings for her bow. Logical one might think, but not something we’ve really seen before in a comic book archer.

Commentary

Peter David, the writer

The entire run of the original Young Justice comic book series was written by Peter David, a fan favourite novelist and veteran comic book writer. David is no stranger to TV and has written highly regarded episodes of Babylon 5, Crusade, and Space Cases and several recent episodes of the Ben 10 franchise. Therefore, it’s not that surprising that he was tapped to write an episode of the Young Justice cartoon adaptation. The first confirmation of this came when David posted on his bog that:

I neglected to mention yesterday [Jul 24th, 2nd day of the San Diego Comic-Con] that I attended the presentation of the “Young Justice” animated series. The audience reaction seems overwhelmingly positive, and I’m glad to hear it, because (and I am now free to mention it) I’m going to be writing several episodes for the series. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to reconnect with the characters, even if there are some differences between the guys I wrote and the new incarnation. I would love to tell you all about my first episode, but I’m afraid that it’s…oh, what’s the word…Secret.

The tease was the name of a popular character, “the Secret”, who starred in his YJ, but is absent from the Cartoon Network version (see below for details).

The Secret and Harm

Harm first appeared in Young Justice (vol. 1) #4 (Jan 1999) as a young wannabe supervillain who runs rings around the team before escaping back to his secret identity as a suburban teen called Billy. It looks like he’ll be back for another round quite quickly, but issue #5 ends with the shocking conclusion of Harm’s father shooting him rather than allow his evil to continue.

Unfortunately death doesn’t really have a meaning for supervillains and Harm returns several issues later, more powerful than ever, as a demon during a jail break from Hell.

The Secret, who as we’ve seen in this episode is Harm’s sister, was more talkative in the original comics, but we didn’t know she was a ghost, at least at first. She had little or no memory of who she was before Young Justice liberated her from a government-run orphanage for superhumans. She was insubstantial and appeared to be a living gas, but her touch could freeze objects or people and it soon become clear that there was more to her origin than it appeared.

The truth of the Secret’s origin is revealed in Young Justice (vol. 1) #42 (April 2002) as the Secret came face-to-face with the Spectre – DC’s ghostly spirit of vengeance and cosmic exposition. Billy (Harm) was Greta’s adopted brother in the original comics. Her memories of Billy and her original life were slowly reawakening and the Spectre took her back to the site of the shooting shown above.

He then explains that her brother had fallen in with a minor demon called Buzz who offered him power in exchange for a sacrifice, specifically the life of his younger sister. Billy obliged by tossing a toaster into Greta’s bath water electrocuting her, but she revived on the mortuary table as a disembodied cloud. The Spectre (and yes that is Hal Jordan… it’s a long story) further explained that she isn’t completely dead and that the “Lords of Light” took an interest in her. They transformed her into a living ghost, neither dead or alive, but a conduit between this world and the next.

It’s a surprisingly dark background for a character who duplicated Miss Martian’s naive and vulnerable character. The evil god Darkseid, Desaad’s boss hinted at last episode, tries to tempt the Secret into embracing her power over death and she almost falls. Eventually at the end of the Young Justice‘s run Darkseid tires of her resistance and punitively strips her powers from her. What he’s too blind to see is that her power derives from her being partially dead, remove that and she’s just a normal healthy living girl again. Secret then lives out the rest of her life in pease and isn’t see again.

Harm is voiced by Ben Diskin who voiced Venom in Greg Weisman’s The Spectacular Spider-Man. Secret is voiced by reoccurring Young Justice voice artist Masasa Moyo (Cat Grant, Wendy Harris).

Secrets

The theme of this episode is secrets and there are a lot of them to go around. In no specific order:

• Megan and Conner’s relationship.
• Captain Marvel’s true age
• Artemis’s crush on Superboy.
• Artemis’s parentage and secret identity.
• The existence of a mole on the team.
• The new that the Martian stories are just a prank
• Miss Martian lying about how she was selected to be the Manhunter’s sidekick.
• Harm’s murder of his sister
• Robin’s secret identity. The one Team member with an identity he can’t tell the others is one of those who doesn’t go to the High School dance.
• Secret Meeting: Did the rest of the Team know that Aqualad was talking to Red Arrow and Batman.

Halloween Allusions

Team costumes

• Artemis: Female vampire.
• Kid Flash: The Michael J. Fox werewolf from Teen Wolf.
• Superboy: The Mummy.
• Miss Martian: There is plenty going on here. Kid Flash first asks if she’s going as My Favourite Martian, a 1960s sitcom about a martian living secretly on Earth. Her actual costume is as a zombie bride (although being a DC series they could justify it as a Silver Banshee allusion). Later when she scares Marvin the human she uses a scary version of Marvin the Martian from the 1948 Haredevil Hare cartoon and a monster cry which may be Godzilla’s roar.
• Zatanna: Is unsurprisingly a witch.

Student Costumes.

There are quite a few costumes at the part. Almost all of them are variations of the Justice League and/or their allies. The ones that caught my eye were:

• Wonderful Wizard of Oz versions of a Scarecrow and Dorothy.
• Male version of Harley Quinn
• A Hawkwoman who looks suspiciously close to Justice League Unlimited‘s Hawkgirl
• Bobble-head Red Tornado
• Shaggy from Scooby Doo
• Mal Duncan as “Superman, done right” – it’s actually Conner’s original comic book costume
• Karen Beecher as Bumblebee – her comic book costume and an allusion to the name of the school’s cheer-leading trope,
• The Flaming C – Conan O’Brien’s alter ego who has been patching into Young Justice clips before

The Martian Invasion

The hoax of a Martian Invasion is an allusion to a War of the Worlds radio play that was broadcast on Halloween 1938. HG Well’s book about a Martian invasion of London was adapted for an American setting by famed movie director Orson Wells. A master storyteller, Orson Wells used the format of radio and people’s familiarity with it to present a fictionalised invasion through news bulletins and reports. The tactic worked so well that less attentive listeners and those tuning in late bought into the scenario entirely. This led to reports of people telephoning their local radio stations or police departments for verification. The level of national panic if often overplayed, but the myth of it has entered the popular psyche. It is that same sort of manipulation of people’s perceptions, now via social media, that Marvin uses in this story.

The Sword of Beowulf

Beowulf was the subject of an 8th century Anglo-Saxon epic which tells of his defeat of the the monster Grendel and his mother. The story was adapted as a CGI film in 2007 by Robert Zemeckis and Beowulf was voiced by Ray Winstone.

There are several swords in Beowulf which could be the sword refered to her. The first is the sword Hrunting which is given Beowulf so that he might fight the Grendel. However, the sword’s magic fails and Beowulf is forced to kill Grendel with his bear hands. It was described as “a rare and ancient sword” and that it had been “tempered in blood”. Later when Beowulf is fighting Grendel’s mother he picks up another sword, Nagling, which had been forged by giants:

Then the golden hilt, the ancient work of giants, was given into the hands of the old warrior, the grey-haired battle-chief; after the fall of the devils it came into the possession of the lord of the Danes, a work of marvellous smiths; and when the cruel-hearted creature, God’s adversary, guilty of murder, and his mother, too, forsook this world, it passed into the possession of the best of earthly kings between the seas, of those who dealt out treasures in the Danish kingdom.

However, that sword’s power also fails during Beowulf’s last fight with the dragon and it shatters on the monster’s armour like skin. Whether “the Sword of Beowulf” is Nrunting or a reforged Nagling isn’t clear.

Misc.

• The Met – The art museum shown in this episode isn’t specifically identified by name, but a Manhattan art museum with a grand neo-classical facade can only be the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue.  Although, in a DC Universe a Metropolitan Museum not in Metropolis does get a little confusing.
• Detective Jim Daniels – the police man who is talking to the museum curator in the tag sequence is called Detective Daniels and if given he name Jim Daniels in the credits. I’m not familiar with a particular DC reference – beyond a rich-kid in an old Superman Christmas story with the same name. But, the actor James McDaniel did place a policeman in the police drama NYPD Blue.
• Up until now Captain Marvel has been voiced by Rob Lowe, but for this episode he’s succeeded by his younger brother Chad Lowe. Chad has previously voiced Cosmic Boy in the Superman animated series.
• The Silver Blade. Artemis and Zatanna ride the bikes out of a teleport-tube hidden behind a vintage billboard advertising an old movie called The Silver Blade. Silverblade was a 1987 DC comic book series about a washed-up actor called Jon Lord who has the ability to turn into any of the amazing movie heroes he’s ever played. The series is named after his signature role as the swashbuckling Silverblade.
• Zatanna is riding a red motorcycle which would probably be Superboy’s bike, but I suppose he doesn’t need it how he’s got the Supercycle.
• The shop across the street from Harm’s house, the shop that Secret took her name from, is Abel’s House of Secrets. Abel (of brothers Cain and Able fame) was the host of a horror anthology called the House of Secrets in much the same manner as the Crypt Keeper was the host of Tales from the Crypt.

Characters

Feature Characters

The Team

• Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm. Last appeared in "Disordered". )
• Artemis (Artemis Crock. Last appeared in "Disordered". )
• Kid Flash (Wally West. Last appeared in "Disordered". )
• Miss Martian (M’gann M’orzz/Megan Morse. Last appeared in "Disordered". )
• Robin (Dick Grayson. Last appeared in "Disordered". )
• Superboy (Conner Kent. Last appeared in "Disordered". )

Supporting Cast

• Wolf (Last appeared in "Humanity". )

Guest Stars

The Justice League

• Batman (Bruce Wayne. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Captain Marvel (Billy Batson. Still hanging around the Cave. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Red Tornado (Last appeared in "Failsafe". )

Allies

• Red Arrow (Roy Harper. Last appeared in "Targets". )
• Secret (The ghost of Greta Hayes. Assists Zatanna and Artemis stop and apprehend Harm – her brother and murderer. Can only say the word Secret. )
• Zatanna (Last appeared in "Humanity")

Villains

• Harm (Hayes. First Earth-16 appearance. The brother of Greta Hayes. He kills her in order to purify his heart ahead of his stealing of the Sword of Beowulf. )

Other Characters

• Dectective Jim Daniels (Detective with the NYPD. First appearance.)
• Happy Harbour High-School Students and teachers including: Lucas Carr, Mal Duncan, Karen Beecher, Wendy Harris, Marvin White (At the Halloween dance. Last appeared in "Targets")
• Unnamed museum curator

Opinion

Highlights

• The kitchen explosion/ambush and Harm’s almost expletive.

Oddities

• The language used around Greta’s grave is oddly muted (shades of Standard and Practices). Zatanna asks Greta “How did you die?” and is shown Harm’s dagger. Artemis says to Harm “you did this to your own sister”. Likewise, she calls the act “it” or “that”, never “killed” or “murdered”.

Open Questions

• Something is up with Miss Martian’s origin. In Young Justice (vol. 2) #5-6 the Team sat around the campfire and related their origin stories to each other. Miss Martian told a tale about winning an Olympic style contest in order to be chosen as the Martian Manhunter’s worthy sidekick. However, its straight out said here that she stowed away on the Manhunter’s space craft to Earth. What is the full truth and how does his play into her insecurity about White Martians?

My thoughts

Artemis and Zatanna’s girl’s night-out crime fighting turns into a surprisingly dark ghost story that is off-set by the light-hearted Halloween Dance antics back in Happy Harbour. What is impressive is that this is virtually an all-girls episode. Conner and Wally are just foils for Megan in the Happy Harbour sequences and Aqualad and Robin are locked in the conference with Batman. Its therefore interesting to give them such a boy villain to fight. The entire “I’m pure evil” stance makes Harm appear the most immature character in the episode (he definitely needs to lay off on the animé influences). The plot almost comes down to the two acting grown-up girls fighting the silly immature-boy.

A lot of us old Young Justice fans from the 2000s comic-book series remember the Greta Hayes character with affection. Peter David’s original treatment of the characters was to write them as a little younger, perhaps a little broader than shown here. You can think of the original Young Justice series as being the inspiration for both the Teen Titans and Young Justice cartoons. The tone and artistic-style of the comic book was translated into the Teen Titans cartoon whilst the characters and milieu became the YJ cartoon itself. Secret served the character role that Megan does – the naive, slightly vulnerable girl character opposite the headstrong, tomboy girl character (clichés, but the same breakdown can be applied to the guys in any cartoon/comic). The manner of Secret’s transition to the screen is surprising, but it works brilliantly.

If I was to nitpick I’d say that this episode was let down in a couple of places by the framing/animation on the action sequences. For example, Harm’s first attack on Zatanna and Artemis just feels oddly static. However, that is only nitpicking, the combination of the Secret/Harm and the focus on Zatanna/Artemis otherwise makes this a great episode.

Issue Credits

Writer

Peter Milligan

Artist

Mikel Janin

Colourist

Ulises Arreola

Letterer

Rob Leigh

Cover Artist

Ryan Sook

Editor

Rex Ogle

Quotes

John Constantine: You’re right, mate. I never really known what I’m doing.

Synopsis “In The Dark Part Three: Dark Matter” (20-pages)

Previously: June Moon has somehow become separated from the Enchantress, the witch entity which usually possesses her. However, this has driven the Enchantress insane. Through her bitterness and anger, she blames other magic users for her separation from June, but those emotions are being manipulated by Madame Xanadu for her own purposes. The Enchantress first attacked Zatanna, who retreated into a protective trace, before tracking June Moon to the Deadman’s apartment and attacking Dawn Granger, Deadman’s girlfriend.

The British magician John Constantine had been searching for Zatanna ever since he sensed her distress. He eventually finds her sat on an US side-walk surrounded by concerned onlookers and paramedics. Zatanna is in a protective meditating trance and Constantine has to use Zatanna’s own backwards magic to wake her. They then go to a hotel to compare notes and to heal each other with tantric magic. To Zatanna’s annoyance, John then disappears to investigate the Enchantress on his own.

June Moon apologizes to Deadman for causing problems between him and Dawn, but he wonders if the Enchantress’s crooked influence was swaying their behaviour. The conversation is cut short when the wall behind them starts crackling with magical energy. The terrorized June believes that the Enchantress has found her and runs. However, the luminous display is actually caused by Rac Shade trying to reach Deadman. Neither June or Deadman realise the real significance and don’t acknowledge Shade’s request for them to cross over. June flees to the roof of Deadman’s apartment building, but topples over the edge in her panic. Deadman possesses her and uses his circus skills to save her life.

After his unsuccessful attempt to recruit June and Deadman, Madam Xanadu says that the Shade will have to try recruiting a telepath called Mindwarp. Rac is worried that Mindwarp is psychotic, but the M-Vest talks to him and warns him about brooding. It creates the Kathy creature from earlier (Justice League Dark #1) forcing Shade to destroy it. Rac retreats to bar for a drink (where he is observed by Constantine) before going to see Jay Young, alias Mindwarp. Rac traces Jay from Los Angles, USA to Sydney, Australia and interrupts him in his “Seizure Soul” astral form while performing a robbery.

June and Deadman are driving down a dark road when they think they hit a person. They stop and get out of their car to see if the person the hit is okay, but suddenly find themselves face-to-face with the Enchantress.

Commentary

• Preview: Comic Book Resources
• Writer Interview: Milligan Pens Two Constantines (CBR)
• Art Commentary: Swipe File – Justice League Dark and Deviant Art (Bleeding Cool) – an innocent mix-up on image rights caused by a photograph being wrongly uploaded/labelled on an image sharing site.

Opinion

This issue rotate the pairings of the characters and draws them all together by one more step. Shade and Xanadu break apart, Shade meets Mindwarp, but Constantine is close behind. Constantine has met and then left Zatanna, while June and Deadman meet the Enchantress. The general consensus from last issue was that this series was slowly paced, but that Peter Milligan’s engaging script and the character moments still made it enjoyable. It’s a nice trick, but this third issue has essentially the same format as the first two – links slowly forming between the characters as they become aware of each other and the larger threat around them.

Jesse Schedeen (IGN) questions whether this is “even meant to be a team book, or just an ensemble series following various separate but interconnected groups?” while Greg McElhatton (CBR) says this issue is suffering from arc “middle issue syndrome”, but that its is still an enjoyable read. You can see in the reviews that people are getting a little impatient for the larger plot to kick into high-gear, but they are not too upset by the developments we do have. The Dean (AICN Comics) challenges the naysayers to like this series:

The Miller, Moore, and Morrison apologists of the world may find the series lacking substance, but they’d be missing out on a fun ride with unusual characters that leaves you fully entertained, even if you might not reference it in your “Defense of Comics” essay for your snooty English lit professor.

Justice League and Justice League Dark are superficially very different books about very different sets of characters, but the underlying story in each is almost identical. Justice League conceals its slow-plot with massive Jim Lee visual stunts, whereas Justice League Dark used a stream of finely crafted and instructive character moments. Both work within their own context, but feel played out after three issues. Maybe its a page count issue, maybe they’d read better back-to-back, but both titles needs a twist, change, or some other change of gear as they transition from the first to the, presumed, second half of their arcs.

Mindwarp, the new character,  appears interesting — a man-child thief who suffers from epilepsy and is able to project a powerful astral version of himself during his seizures. Mindwarp first appeared in the Flashpoint bridging series Flashpoint: Secret Seven, which was also written by Peter Milligan, but this is his first proper DCU appearance. As high-concepts go he is interesting, but he’s at odds with the other characters in that he doesn’t already have a previously established back story. Minhquan Nguyen (Weekly Comic Book Review) puts forward the old-time readers conundrum about Mindwarp in perspective:

Most problematically, his appearance lacks all context. You have no idea why he’s attacking that unnamed, unidentified man in the hotel, or threatening that man’s unnamed, unidentified lady companion.

Mindwarp’s appearance here is a significant as he’s the Conway-character. This is something all Justice League writers do, add to the League a character that they created or significantly reformed. Conway added Firestorm, Morrison added Zauriel, and Geoff Johns is adding his version of Cyborg. The other players have been established as clear and definite personalities ahead of any clear explanation of their individual back stories. Therefore readers are left to ransack their memories of the older-versions of these characters to fill in the blanks. It works well for the other members of this group, but breaks down for Mindwarp and that makes him feel odd. A blank slate amid all these old and finely studied characters.

Then again… there is a very certain lack of definition in this entire series and I’m beginning to think its deliberate. The only characters who are named are the protagonists – background characters and places remain cyphers. Even in the art you’re never really sure where things are meant to be set. Dark country lanes could be any dark country lane, bar and hotel signs are partial obscured. The character’s backgrounds are likewise obscured and we’re left with their pure force of personality.

The Verdict

Characters

Feature Characters

• Deadman (Boston Brand. The ghost of a circus aerialist cursed to help the living. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #2. )
• John Constantine (A British magician and con-man. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #2. Knows a bit of Zatanna’s backwards magic. )
• June Moone (Mortal alter-ego of the Enchantress. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #2. )
• Madame Xanadu (A fortune-teller. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #2. )
• Mindwarp (Jay Young. Professional thief, described by Rac Shade as psychotic. Has an apartment in Los Angles. First non-Flashpoint appearance. )
• Shade the Changing Man (Rac Shade, Wearer of the Meta-Vest. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #1. )
• Zatanna Zatara (Second generation magician. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #2. )

Villains

• Enchantress (The mad witch. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #1. )

Other Characters

• Ellingstone paramedics and onlookers (clustered around Zatanna whilst she is meditating on the side-talk)
• Kathy (A homunculus created by the M-Vest to manipulated the Shade. Last seen in Justice League Dark #1. )
• A unnamed Australian couple (its their apartment that Mindwarp is burglarizing when he is found by by Rac Shade).

Annotations

Cover. The original solicited cover showed (left) John Constantine on the back of Zatanna’s bike fleeing from the hands of the Enchantress, but the released cover (right) was different and showed Deadman, Constantine, and Zatanna facing the audience.

Page 1. The first page of this issue got artist Mikel Janin into a bit of a hub-bub online after somebody at Bleeding Cool noticed that the pattern of trees on this dark road:

matches those from photograph they’d seen elsewhere on the Internet. Janin has download this photograph:

from a site which claimed it was an archive of royalty free stock images, but whoever loaded the photograph didn’t have the original photographer’s permission.The image is actually called “Into The Mist” and was taken by photographer Greg Martin. Janin publically apologised to the photographer for his innocent mistake and commented on Bleeding Cool’s forums that:

I didn’t find it in Deviant Art but in a wallpaper stock image site, and I really thought this image was copyright free. (Dark Forrest Road wallpaper from Dark wallpapers personally think that using photographs for reference it’s always ok, using your own photographs, stock images or similar. When I need a photograph for reference I buy it or I download it from a free copyright site, or ask permission to the author of the image. I’m sorry I didn’t seek enough to find the person who did this one. The debate about referencing in art is old and don’t want to start one here. Someone so big and respected in the industry like Stuart Immonen explained something about it way better than I could do. (Stuart Immonen on Computers and Art | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources) Thanks to Bleeding Cool I’ve found the photographer, so I’m going to write him to clarify this. My sincere apologies to the photographer, and to anyone who can feel cheated by the use of an image as reference.

Page 2. The locality on the ambulance is Ellingstone.

Page 3. Maithuna is one of the central rites of Tantrism, a spiritual movement from India which stresses the both physical and spiritual union of female and male aspects. This is the PG version, “only the very tips of our fingers touch”, as Constantine describes. Shakti is the female aspect in Tantrism and the Divine Mother in Hinduism. She/it is the prime agent of change. Shiva, by constant, is the male aspect and one of the most important Hindu gods. He/it is also an agent of change, but as the destroyer (i.e. the one who wipes away the old so the new can be created).

Page 4. Zatanna has a tattoo, several in fact. One on her upper-right arm and another that starts on her back and winds around to her right-hand stomach.

Page 8. A Shibboleth is more than a mark. It’s a cultural thing that only those from your culture or a very narrow cultural group might know. For example, you may discern an Englishman from an American from his arcane knowledge of the game of cricket or vise versa, by the American’s knowledge of baseball (that second one was actually used in WWII to stop German infiltrators).

Page 11. Deadman makes reference to his death at the hands of an assassin called the Hook. The current DC Comics Presents #1 recaps his origin as:

However, Boston Brand’s spirit did not cross over to the afterlife and he instead found himself working for a spirit/goddess call Rama. He had left a selfish live, but Rama gave him the chance to redeem himself by becoming her servant in death. His job is to help the living by possessing their bodies and straightening out their lives one at a time (think of the main character from Quantum Leap, but undead).

Page 15. The TV in the first panel shows the double-page spread from Justice League Dark #1 and the TV in the second panel shows the double-page spread from Justice League Dark #2 .

Page 16. Patek are a brand of exclusive Swiss Watch. The Aria “Un Bel Di Vedremo” is a lyric from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. It’s translation is something like “One good day, we will see” which is ironic given the number of dark days that this series and these characters have seen.

Page 17. Mindwarp first appeared in Flashpoint: Secret Seven #2 (Sep 2011). In the Flashpoint reality he was a member of the Secret Seven, a defunct JL Dark like group that had been run by Rac Shade, but which had imploded sometime before the events depicted. The Enchantress was also the “bagguy” in that series and made the other former members of the group believe that Rac had tried to kill them. They attacked Rac and he was forced to kill them in self-defence.

In both realities Mindwarp is 23-years-old Jay Young, a super-human thief who steals to finance his expensive and lavish lifestyle. He suffers from a bizarre for of epilepsy. During an epileptic seizure he projects an astral form which “operates within a world of extreme synaptic plasticity.” He is in effect projecting a ghost of himself which can either pass through or hold objects as desires and can be seen or be ignored as he desires. The Flashpoint Mindwarp was killed in Flashpoint: Secret Seven #3 (Oct 2011) which makes this his first real DCU appearance.

Page 20. Classic witch moment: Enchantress’s “I just want to eat you up.” Is one of those odd phrases that old women use and young children find particularly creepy. Those creepy old dears aren’t really cannibals, but the phrase gains that literal meaning in the classic portrayal of the witch as old woman.

Issue Credits

Writer

Peter Milligan

Artist

Mikel Janin

Colourist

Ulises Arreola

Letterer

Rob Leigh

Cover Artist

Ryan Sook

Editor

Rex Ogle

Quotes

Xanadu: Listen, I have a theory. You don’t have the powers these people have without paying a heavy price. You know what it’s like, to destroy anything innocent that enters your life? To destroy love? You know what that does to you? A kind of darkness envelops you.

Synopsis “In The Dark Part Two: Dark Matter” (20-pages)

Previously: Magical champions are being manipulated by the witches Enchantress and Madame Xanadu. The Enchantress has been split from her mortal alter ego, June Moon, and has devolved into a bitter and hateful maelstrom of magic. She vanquishes the Justice League, but cannot find June Moon who has escaped across the country. Madame Xanadu’s cards have revealed to her the dark future that the Enchantress represents and she has begun drawing together a group of damaged individuals to seemingly oppose her.

Zatanna Zatara has gone to confront the Enchantress after watching her defeat Superman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg on the League’s monitors. She finds a Midwestern town overwhelmed by vines and giant glowing ants. Enchantress’s voice calls out to Zatanna through a car radio and accuses her of doing something to her mind. She then “retaliates” by enveloping Zatanna with a wave of darkness. John Constantine has come to America to search for Zatanna after he was mystically teleported by her across Britain. He deliberately gets himself beaten-up and stabbed so that he can channel the pain into an invocation which will find her.

Dawn Granger is waiting in a bar for her boyfriend, the ghost of Boston Brand (alias Deadman), to join her when a handsome stranger starts talking to her. She initially brushes him off, but he reveals that he is actually Boston and has just possessed the stranger’s body. He thought that the borrowed body would allow him to by physically intimate with Dawn, but she is repulsed by the idea. The matter rapidly degenerates when the man’s wife turns up and accuses him of cheating on her. Boston tries to save the guy’s relationship and leaves with the man’s wife, much to Dawn’s confusion. He returns to her apartment later and swears that nothing happened, but they still row over Boston’s description of Dawn as “old-fashioned”.

June Moon then shows up at their door (as shown last issue). She asked Deadman to possess her, to check whether there is anything left of the Enchantress within her. He can’t find anything, but Boston makes the mistake of trying to talk to Dawn whilst still in June’s body. Dawn recoils and storms out. June then warns Boston that the Enchantress won’t rest until she possesses her again and that, by coming to Boston, she’s probably placed him in danger. As Dawn drives away, the Enchantress talks to her through her car radio. Dawn changes to Dove and flies above the Enchantress’s cloud of darkness and it passes her on the hunt for June Moon. Madame Xanadu watches the gathering heroes and talks to the Enchantress, goading her and provoking her to try harder in her attacks upon the broken heroes.

Continuity

• Boston Brand burnt down his High School science building.

Commentary

• Editorial Change: Eddie Berganza is no longer listed in the credits as editor alongside Rex Ogle.
• Preview pages: Comic Book Resources

Opinion

The future members of the Justice League Dark continue on their slow gathering as the Enchantress attacks Zatanna and June Moon talks to Deadman. There are a lot of moving parts in this story and Peter Milligan does an excellent job of keeping the majority of them in motion (did you realise that Rac Shade didn’t appear this issue). Erik Norris (IGN) calls it when he says “when you have a story that’s fundamentally this intriguing, it’s easy to forgive the slower pace of this series”. The same sentiment is echoed by Rebel Rikki (Nerdy Nothing) who writes:

Normally these slow-build arcs don’t do it for me — I generally don’t think it should take til the end of your first full story to establish your team — but when such solid attention is paid to characterization, I can’t really complain.

In another title, this same sort of slow pace have been frustrating, but Milligan and Janin take us on a path that appears obviously linear (separate heroes come together, they fight evil), but is actually more of a slow spiral as events revolve around and inexorably head towards the Enchantress. On this approach, Greg McElhatton (CBR) notes that:

What makes it work so well, though, is that Milligan does a strong job of giving everyone their own moment. From Zatanna’s early confrontation with the heart of the disturbance, to Deadman and Dove’s relationship woes, you quickly get a feel for each character and get a strong idea of how they’re going to interact.

The sense dysfunction around these off-beat characters is maintained through out the story and plays a strong part in the tone and feel of the series. Be it the odd physicality of Constantine’s magic or Deadman’s unwitting creepiness.

A counter-point to the acceptance of the slow pacing is given by Jason Clyma (Broken Frontier) who describes the repeated focus on the same sort of personal dysfunction for every character as “treading of water”. He concludes that:

If Milligan was using his time to explore interesting aspects of his team this pacing could surely be forgiven, but when each character does little more than take up space, it drags the book down to a snail’s crawl.

The Dawn Granger and Boston Brand romance is propelled into something that verges on the Gothic horror, a possessive ghostly lover with a little too much sex drive. Middle-Aged Geek Guy calls it a “post-modern episode of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased).” The use of the Enchantress was a crazy witch caused several reviews, including Brian Cee Williams (Champion City Comics), to draw a parallel with the Avenger’s Scarlet Witch. The parallel is reinforced when the Enchantress refers to her “Hexes” (SW’s traditional power) being stronger than Zatanna’s spells.

Mikel Janin’s artwork masterfully complements Milligan’s script. His tonal work overlain with Ulises Arreola’s subtle colours create a reality which makes the dark shadows even more horrific and the bright mystical lights all that much more spectacular. I particularly like the parts where Constantine’s attacks are not identifiable and are just cyphers to move his part of the plot along.

How it has to be said, but Janin draws Dawn in costume for all of two pages and still manages to completely outclass Rob Leifeld’s recent work on Hawk and Dove.

The Verdict

Characters

Feature Characters

Justice League Dark

• Deadman (Boston Brand. The ghost of a circus aerialist cursed to help the living. Last appeared Justice League Dark #1. )
• John Constantine (A british magician and con-man. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #1. )
• June Moone (Mortal alter-ego of the Enchantress. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #1. )
• Madame Xanadu (A fortune teller. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #1. )

Guest Stars

• Dove (Dawn Granger. One half of Hawk and Dove. The Deadman’s girlfriend. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #1.)

Villains

• Enchantress (The mad witch. Last appeared in Justice League Dark #1. )

Other Characters

• Unnamed man whom Deadman possesses and his wife (in the Washington, DC bar)

Annotations

Page 2-3. Enchantress overwhelming a town with vines could be just another random occurance of her magic, but on an archetypal level it represents the vines that grew around Sleeping Beauty’s castle or Jack’s beanstalk.

Page 4. “Demons in the Darkness”. Darkness in the DC Universe has a very particular source. As shown in Justice Society stories by Geoff Johns and Starman stories by James Robinson the primaeval darkness that existed prior to the creation of the first light (“Let there be light!” and all that) was not entirely destroyed. It retreated to the edge of creation and became the plane/dimension/place called the Shadowlands. Some individuals like the Shade (the Starman version, not the Changing Man) and Obsidian (Alan Scott’s son) can access that place and use it to power their superhuman abilities.

Page 6. Joan Armatrading a British folk/blues singer who has been active since the 1970s. Her most successful album was 1980′s “Me, Myself, I” . The lyric “I am not in love, but I’m open to persuasion” is the opening line to Love and Affection, Joan’s first UK chart hit in 1976.

Page 7. Deadman: “I burnt down the science building”. I like this knod to the balance between science and the mystic, the man who rejected science becomes enveloped by the mystical.

Page 17. Dove has personalised number plates: DOV 51DC. The DC could stand for Washington, DC.

Page 18. “Avatar of Peace” – Dawn Granger and Hawk Hall are the superhero duo of Dove and Hawk. They were were created by a Lord of Order and a Lord of Chaos (incorporal mystical entities, the same race as Nabu who powers Doctor Fate) who had fallen in love and were determined to prove that that the two factions could work together. Hank and Dawn were then transformed into the warlike Hawk (the avatar of war) and the more pacifest Dawn (the avatar of peace). The duo currently star in their own series written by Sterling Gates and dawn by Rob Liefeld.

Issue Credits

Writer

Geoff Johns

Penciller, Cover Penciller

Jim Lee

Inker, Cover Inker

Scott Williams

Colourist

Alex Sinclair, Hi-Fi, Gabe Eltaeb

Letterer

Patrick Brosseau

Cover Colourist

Alex Sinclair

Variant Cover Penciller

Greg Capullo

Variant Cover Inker

Jonathan Glapion

Variant Cover Colourist

Fco Plascenia

Assistant Editor

Darren Shan

Editor

Brian Cunningham

Quotes

Wonder Woman: CREATURES OF EVIL! BACK TO HADES!Flash: Uh… wow.Green Lantern: Dibs.

Synopsis “Justice League Part Three” (22-pages)

Previously: It is five years ago and Earth’s newly emerged superheroes are feared by a populice who cannot yet tell them apart from the supervillains. Matters begin when Gotham City’s Batman and Coast City’s Green Lantern find themselves fighting the same winged mechanical-demon. Together they follow-up the possibility that it is an alien creature by questioning the alien Superman in Metropolis. A misunderstanding leads to a brawl and Green Lantern calls in the Flash to back them-up. The four heroes have only just got their personal misunderstandings sorted when a box they seized from the first monster starts “pinging”. A massive teleportation portal suddenly opens and a hoard of identical creatures poor through. A second portal simultaneously opens in Detroit’s STAR Labs severely injuring Victor Stone, the son of Silas Stone, the scientist who had been studying another of the alien boxes.

Diana, the Wonder Woman from a society of immortal Amazons, had decided to stay in Man’s World after escorting USAF pilot Colonel Steve Trevor safely back from his crash-landing on Paradise Island. Her arrival and her eagerness to battle monsters has played into the general hysteria surrounding the emerging super-humans. She had been a guest of Trevor’s military superiors at the Pentagon, but Diana goes AWOL to investigate sighting of a flying monster. Along the way, she discovers the delights of “ice cream” from a young child. However, their conversation is cut short, first by Steve Trevor, and then by a third portal that opens up over Washington. Diana yells “But this is a fight. Excellent! Leave them to me.”

Other portals have opened across the world. In Detroit, the monsters have flown off with most of the occupants of STAR Labs. Dr Silas Stone and his colleagues, Sarah Charles and Thomas Morrow, are left behind to try and save the life of Silas’s son. Victor’s body is still smouldering with some unknown energy as the scientists get him into STAR Lab’s Red Room – the store house where Silas keeps the alien and superhuman technology that he has recovered from around the world. They hurriedly replace Victor’s damaged body parts with promethium skin grafts, motors, and nanite regulated biology in a desperate bid to rebuild him before his entire biology is consumed by the alien energy. Victor’s mind races as he makes contact with the technology that is becoming part of his body. Through the chaos and pain he sees the nightmarish face of the demons’ master.

In Metropolis, Batman, Green Lantern, the Flash, and Superman are still battling against the invading hoard. They also notice that the demons are carrying away rather than killing their foes. Wonder Woman’s arrives to join them after followed her hoard from Washington to Metropolis. The growing band of heroes continues to follow the demons to the edge of the ocean, but a booming sound signals that another gateway has opened. A massive alien fortress appears in Metropolis harbour. The onlookers barely have time to contemplate its arrival, before a green-and-orange clad Aquaman climbs out of the harbour and tells them “They were in the water too.”

Text piece: The Secret History of Atlantis by David Graves.

Continuity

• Steve Trevor is Wonder Woman’s Pentagon Liaison.
• Thomas Morrow and Anthony Ivo worked for STAR Labs in Detroit at the time the Justice League formed. Morrow participated in the creation of Cyborg.

Commentary

• Editorial Changes: Darren Shan replaces Rex Ogle as the Assistant Editor (who has left for DC for a job with Harry Potter publisher Scholastic) and Brain Cunningham replaces Eddie Berganza as Editor.
• Final coloured cover: Alex (*sinccolor) Sinclair’s Deviant Art page

Opinion

The third instalment of the new Justice League sees the introduction of the post-Flashpoint Wonder Woman and Aquaman. This series feels like it’s really getting into its stride. Mart Gray says this issue provides a “solid mix of story advancement, characterisation and action”, while the Heretic calls it “pretty hefty”, and Erik Norris (IGN) says it delivers on the promise of being “DC’s blockbuster action title”. Even CBR, which called last issue “weak”, says that the creative team have “found their groove” with this third issue.

I find the Wonder Woman’s first meeting of the other heroes rather telling. Back during the 1980s reboot she popped-up to punch a robotic dog (another Darkseid plot) in Legends, but vanished before Superman could ask who she was. This Wonder Woman smashes straight into the middle of the combat, and for that matter the banter, and doesn’t feel the need to demurely runaway afterwards. She is also younger than we’ve seen her portrayed in the past and Diana still has a chip on her shoulder about being treated as a child by the other Amazons. She is in wonder of some aspects of Steve Trevor’s world, but she’s not naive about evil or about the possibility of monsters. This Diana has the enthusiasm for the fight that her older, normal DCU version has tempered with experience and the knowledge that a peaceful approach is usually the better choice (if available).

DC have been hunting for a persona for Wonder Woman for years and this one fits as well as any other they’ve tried. The Perez version was very regal, but over time had evolved into something almost untouchable and perfect. Gail Simone’s post-Infinite Crisis version brought a greater breadth to the character and actually showed a woman who was able to enjoy her work at times. The version presented here extrapolates that version further and shows an inexperienced Wonder Woman who is as eager to wade into battle as Hercules ever was. She isn’t unrecognisable, but there is certainly a long road between this character the more mature version we’re use to.

Minhquan Nguyen picks up on the apparent youthfulness of the character’s dialogue:

…it should come as no surprise how the interaction among the “Leaguers” (since officially, they’re not a League of anything just yet) feels almost like the banter you’d expect more from the Teen Titans or Young Justice.

The comparison works well as these guys (except for the Batman) don’t yet have that focus which experience beings. However… I’m sorry, but this Hal Jordan is such a jerk. Desite Andy Hunsaker saying Hal’s “douchebaggery is at a minimum” Hal’s comment about Wonder Woman (“Dibs”) is undeniably crass (even by the low stands he’s set himself in this series). I didn’t mind the jerk version of Hal (and even defended it in the first two issues), but the joke is starting to wear rather thin. I’m beginning to wonder if they haven’t swapped Hal out of Guy Gardner.

Jim Lee’s art is great as ever. The opening Wonder Woman sequence reminded me a lot of John Byrne’s style and his run on the character – particularly the camera angle on the second page. However, there are a number of inconsistencies in the way Wonder Woman is drawn. Her face changes quite a bit from panel-to-panel and she goes from wearing heals on page three to wearing flats on page four. I’m not sure why this issue need three different colourists, but the final work isn’t discernible from Alex Sinclair’s usual high-standards.

This is really comes down to the group of four male heroes treading water with even Superman’s stunts had beginning to feel routine. Its Wonder Woman’s scenes that carry the issue and give a boost away from the all-boy-club we’d had so far.

The Verdict

Characters

Feature Characters

The individuals soon to be known as the Justice League

• Aquaman (Arthur Curry. First appearance in this series. )
• Batman (Bruce Wayne. Billionaire playboy turned costumed vigilantie. Last appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #2. )
• Flash (Barry Allen. A CSI in Central City. Last appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #2. )
• Green Lantern (Hal Jordan. Test pilot and interstellar lawman. Last appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #2.)
• Superman (Clark Kent. Reporter turned alien superhero. Last appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #2. )
• Victor Stone (High-school football player. Heavily injured by energy from the Detroit Boom Tube. His father, T.O. Morrow, and Sarah Charles try to save his life with cybernetic devices from STAR Labs’ “Red Room”. Last appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #2. )
• Wonder Woman (Diana of Paradise Island. An Amazon warrior. First appearance in this series. )

Villains

• Darkseid (Behind-the-scenes. First post-Flashpoint visuals in Cyborg’s vision. )
• Para-Demons (lots of them) (Appear in Boom Tubes across the world to abduct people. Last appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #2. )

Other Characters

• Orr and his men (Security team at the Pentagon assigned to watch Wonder Woman)
• Raquel (a young girl who introduces Wonder Woman to ice-cream)
• Sarah Charles (Intern at STAR Labs, Detroit. Last appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #2. )
• Silas Stone (Head of STAR Labs’ superhuman research programme. The father of Victor Stone. Had to watch his wife die. Last appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #2. )
• Steve Trevor (Colonel in the USAF. Assigned to Wonder Woman as her Pentagon liaison.)
• Thomas Morrow (Robotocist at STAR Labs, Detroit. First post-Flashpoint appearance.)

Cameos

• Anthony Ivo (Scientist at STAR Labs, Detroit. Mentioned as one of those abducted by the Para-Demons. )

Annotations

Page 1. It looks like the West-borough Baptist Church are protesting at Wonder Woman in the DC Universe.

Colonel Steve Trevor is Wonder Woman’s Lois Lane. He first appeared alongside Wonder Woman in All-Star Comics #8 (Dec 1941). His exact purpose in her stories has changed over the years, but he is generally her excuse to become a superhero. In most tellings he’s a US pilot who crash lands on the Amazon’s mythical island home and has to be escorted back to Man’s World. Wonder Woman accompanies him and uses her Amazonian powers and skills to fight evil.

Mister Orr, first name unrevealed, is the man in charge of the troops who Steve Trevor is talking to. He is a mysterious black-ops mercenary who appeared in Jim Lee’s run on Superman and in the Lex Luthor: Man of Steel mini-series working for Lex Luthor. He was responsible for the creation of a couple of generations of OMAC prototype and general nastiness.

Page 2. Wonder Woman was created by psychologist William Moulton Marston All-Star Comics #8 (Dec 1941) in response to the apparent lack of female role models in the nascent comic book industry. Marston is famous as the inventor of the lie-detector – an invention that he invoked by giving Wonder Woman a Lasso of Truth which compels people to tell no lies. The Lasso also drew on Marston’s more colourful theories about how it was women’s place to pacify men via the bonds of love. Those pacifying bonds are made manifest by the Lasso, but were played up to such a degree that early Wonder Woman comics are known for having a certain bondage/domination subtext. The flavour of those early stories didn’t survive past Marston’s death and DC’s desperate attempts to make Wonder Woman appear as non-threatening (to men) as possible.

The character languished for decades until George Perez completely restarted her history with Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #1 (Feb 1987). The latest relaunch by Brian Azzarello and Chiff Chiang is part of the New 52 and stays pretty true to the Perez version of the character,. It nevertheless draws on a more Earthy and horror based version of the Greek myth than the toga-wearing academic version used in the 1980s. A subtle development since the 1980s has been the evolution of Wonder Woman’s approach to lethal force as compared to that of her equals in the DC Universe. Her mythological origin gives her a parallel as a monster killer like Hercules. She sees nothing wrong in beheading monsters like Medusa or even humans like Maxwell Lord when she considers them to be monsters. Its not something she does casually or even frequently, but her willingness to cross that line puts her diametrically at odds with Batman.

Diana is asking about a Harpy. In Greek mythology a harpy was a monster who had the torso and head of a woman and the limbs of a eagle.

Page 4. Wonder Woman’s mother would be Queen Hippolyta. Steve Trevor is Wonder Woman’s Pentagon Liaison.

Page 5.

Wonder Woman’s moral willing to use lethal force is externalised here by her carrying of a sword. This particular shape is, in keeping with the origin’s of Diana’s society, an ancient Greek design as used by Hoplite infantry. It is similar to the fantastic replicas created by Windlass Steelcrafts.

Page 6. Two long-standing DC scientist super-villains are revealed to have been working at STAR Labs, Detroit at the time of Darkseid’s attack. The first is Professor Ivo, the inventor of Amazo, who is carried away by the Para-Demons. The other is T.O. Morrow who is the creator of the Red Tornado and his siblings.

Page 10-11. A little bit of an oddity here. Superman is shown using the truck as a weapon as he dismembers the Para-Demons. Its fairly graphic and obvious that Superman is killing these things left-right-and-centre. However, it isn’t entirely clear whether they are alive. They have teeth and spew a blood-like liquid when mangled, but they also show machine-like interface surfaces when parts are hacked off (e.g. the one at Wonder Woman’s feet on page 16).

Page 12. The question is posed: if Morrow and Stone shouldn’t be in the Red Room, who should? I can’t help but question the link between Morrow in the Red Room and the eventually emergence of the Red Tornado.

Page 18. The transformation of Victor Stone into Cyborg. Promethium is a metal from the original run of Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s New Teen Titans. It was a metal which had miraculous abilities to absorb energy. Nanites are tiny machines which operate inside individual cells. They are an important part in the mythology of Star Trek’s Borg and somewhere along the line made the jump into DC’s Cyborg. Grafting cybernetic parts, even if they really existed, onto a real person would take hundreds of hours of delicate surgical procedures, but we’re shown here that Cyborg’s creation was as much battlefield expedience as it was a deliberate plan by his father.

Page 19. The first glimpse of the New 52 Darkseid:

Page 22. The first appearance of the New 52 Aquaman and they appear to have recruited him from the 1970s (nice sideburns).

Page 24. The Secret History of Atlantis text-piece. Its author David Graves was mentioned in last issue’s text piece where Amanda Waller asks if Steve Trevor has ever heard of Graves. In the week of this issues publication DC’s official Twitter channel post the tweet:

@DCComics Signing of THE JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AMONG US by superstar author David #Graves is canceled.

Page 25. “South Orange” is in New Jersey. The first lending date of this book, Dec 2006, is five years ago and is contemporary with this story. However, the copyright date at the bottom shows this book was actually first “published” ten years ago.

Page 26. Graves other books allude to “real” world paranormal cases. “The Yonaguni Pyramid” is in the waters off of Japan. Kaliasa is a temple to Shiva cut into rock in India. The Belmez Faces appeared in a house in Spain.

Page 28. The Graves Foreword name checks two other specialists: Dr Stephen Shin and Dane Dorrance. Dorrance is the leader of a team of divers and explorers called the Sea Devils. Shin is a new character who is mentioned here first and appeared several weeks later in Aquaman #3. Aquaman reluctantly consults Shin about a newly appeared subaquatic race, but he also tells Mera that Shin has become obsessed with finding Atlantis. Shin’s obsession started after he was consulted on the young Arthur Curry’s developing aquatic powers.

Episode Credits

Cast

Artemis

Stephanie Lemelin

Robin

Jesse McCartney

Miss Martian

Danica McKellar

Superboy

Nolan North

Aqualad

Khary Payton

Kid Flash

Jason Spisak

Wolf, Serifan, Desaad

Dee Bradley Baker

Dreamer, Whisper A'Daire

Grey Delisle

Bear

Bill Fagerbakke

Batman

Bruce Greenwood

Black Canary

Vanessa Marshall

Martian Manhunter, Vykin, Ugly Mannheim

Kevin Michael Richardson

Crew

Writer

Andrew Robinson

Director

Michael Chang

Music, Theme Music

Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis

Voice Direction

Jamie Thomason

Animation Timing Director

James Tim Walker

Storyboard

Charles E. Drost III, Paul Harmon, Jeff Johnson, Lauren Montgomery

Lead Character Design

Phil Bourassa

Character Design

Dusty Abell, Jerome Moore, Eugene Mattos

Prop Design

Tea-Soo Kim

Animation Services

MOI Animation Inc.

Animation Director

Sang-Young Uhm

Producer

Brandon Vietti, Greg Weisman

Executive Producer

Sam Register

Quotes

Serafin: Come on pard’ners, lets ride in there, guns a blazing, and round-up them outlaws!Dreamer: He’s watched a lot of Earth Westerns.

Synopsis “Disordered”

Previously in "Failsafe": The Martian Manhunter had linked the Team’s minds together telepathically to create an artificial reality (AR), a shared dream, where the Earth was under attack. The Team were asked to fill the void left after the AR Justice League were killed. However, they were unaware that it was a no-win scenario constructed to test their performance against an impossible enemy. The AR turned into a nightmare after Artemis was “killed”. Miss Martian’s subconscious could not differentiate between the AR and reality and her untrained telepathic mind convinced everybody else that the events they were experiencing were real. Each of the Team “died” in turn as the no-win scenario degenerated towards destruction. It was only at the end, when only Miss Martian was left, that the Manhunter was able to wrestle control of the AR back from her subconscious and shut it down. The Team were left them shaken and disturbed at the choices and sacrifices they had made whilst under extreme duress.

October 23rd — A week has passed since the AR scenario was shut down, but it is clear that the Team are still traumatised. Their mentors are concerned for them so Black Canary begins a series of counselling sessions to help them process their experiences. As usual Superboy (Conner) is the toughest of them to reach. Canary tries talking to him, but he just proclaims “you don’t know what I feel!” and walks out of the session.

Conner is looking for some fresh air and is about to take his motorbike out when the Sphere (the intelligent machine they rescued from the deserts of Bialya in "Bereft") blocks his path. The Sphere surprises him by transforming into a high-tech trike. A smiling Conner then takes the Sphere out for a test flight with Wolf tagging along in the passenger seat. Batman runs into the hanger just as Superboy leaves, but his calls for him to come back remain unanswered.

The Forever People

The peace and quiet of Metropolis is shattered by the opening of a Boom Tube, a teleportation gateway, through which flies a car carrying five super-powered teenagers. These are the Forever people. Their leader Vykin consults “Mother Box” (a box-shaped living alien computer) which informs him via its pinging sounds that what they seek is on world. Superboy is flying down the coast when the Forever People block his path and demand the return of the “New Genesisphere” (Superboy’s Sphere) and other technology stolen from them. However, before the confrontation turns violent Mother Box pings to tells Vykin that Superboy actually saved the New Genesisphere from the real thieves. The Forever People’s attitude suddenly softens and their biggest member Bear, who had just threatened Superboy, enthusiastically proclaims “Apologies! The Forever People embrace you as an ally and worthy warrior!”

The Forever People introduce themselves to Superboy as “new gods” and give their names as Serafin (a gun toting teen obsessed with Earth’s Wild West), Dreamer (their telepath), Moonrider (who remains silent), Vykin (their leader with magnetic powers), and the bombastic strongman Bear. Mother Box has tracked technology stolen from their home world of New Genesis to Earth. The Sphere was the first piece, but they are now zeroing in on the second item, the Rescue Drill. They find the tunnelling machine being used by criminals from Intergang to tunnel into the Metropolis Federal Reserve (“a heist!” explains Serafin). Superboy leads the Forever People underground where they find Ugly Mannheim and Whisper A’Daire directing the Intergang operation.

Vykin naively demands the return of their technology, but Intergang respond with powerful weaponry – discs which cause intense pain, gravity traps which entomb the target, and energy whips. Dreamer is shocked and tells Superboy that the weapons are those of the “Gods of Anti-Life” from the planet of Apokolips. Those weapons give Intergang a distinct advantage in the confined tunnel created by the Rescue Drill so the heroes fall back to the surface, to the construction site Intergang had used as a cover for their drilling operations. The Sphere joins the battle by firing at Intergang. The Forever People gather around their Mother Box and shout “Tarru”. The five teens dissolve in a burst of light and merge into a single giant armoured form called Infinity Man. Its power turns the tide of the battle and forces Mannheim and his men to escape via another Boom Tube.

Infinity Man finally dissolves back into the individual Forever People, but they are concerned about Intergang’s source. Whisper had been captured by Infinity Man and Dreamer uses her telepathic power to project images from Whisper’s memories. A vile hooded figure appears before them and Dreamer exclaims “Desaad!” Superboy has finally had enough of his enigmatic new friends and demands to know what is going on. Dreamer explains that they come from the twin worlds of New Genesis and Apokolips. Bright New Genesis is home to the Gods of Life, Freedom and “The Source” while the brutal world of Apokolips is home to the Gods of Slavery and Degradation. Intergang are using weapons from each faction. The figure Whisper remembers is Desaad, “god scientist and chief torturer” of Apokolips — although the name of Desaad’s “unspeakable” master remains unspoken.

Mother Box tracks the Apokoliptian technology back to a hanger on an airfield, but Superboy’s infra-red vision shows no heat signatures. They sneak inside, but discover that Intergang have been masking their heat patterns and that it’s a trap. The Forever People are too distracted preparing to merge into Infinity Man again to notice that Desaad is disguised as one of Intergang’s foot soldiers. He hands Mannheim a “Father Box” which Mannheim throws at Infinity Man before he’s fully formed. Father Box places Infinity Man fully under Desaad’s control. It batters Superboy around the air-field, but Father Box knows Desaads “predilections” and is more interesting in hurting Superboy that killing him. Infinity Man/Father Box’s focus on Superboy blinds it to the Sphere which attacks the Infinity Man’s head and plugs into its armour. The Sphere can’t free Infinity Man, but it can control him and creates a set of controls that lets Superboy ride Infinity Man like a machine.

Infinity Man, with Superboy at the Sphere’s controls, blocks Intergang’s attacks and fights back. Superboy and Infinity Man disarm Mannheim and his thugs with ease. Mannheim pleads to Desaad for assistance, but the god scientist calls a Boom Tube and makes his own escape. As he goes Desaad shouts “All will suffer!” and throws a bomb back at Infinity Man/Superboy. They destroy it with Infinity Man’s optic blast, but the backwash from the explosion causes Infinity Man to separate back into the Forever People. Wolf destroyed Father Box, but the Sphere has been heavily damaged/wounded. Superboy is concerned for his friend, but Vykin’s Mother Box starts a healing process. The teen gods still intend to take the Sphere back to New Genesis, but Superboy reacts angrily to them taking his friend. His emotional connection to the Sphere reassures them that he won’t just treat “her” as a machine and they agree to him keeping her.

The Counselling Sessions

Canary continues her counselling session while Superboy is away from the Cave. Artemis is terrified when Canary suggests she could tell her team-mates about her real parentage and cites how Kid Flash would react (a choice Canary notes with interest). By comparison Kid Flash is much more relaxed during his session, but he also over reacts that when Canary bring up his reaction to Artemis’s “death” in the AR and tries to change the subject.

Aqualad offers his resignation as leader to Canary during their session and says that he behaved more like a soldier than a general during the AR. Canary then makes him realize that none of the others are ready to assume that mantle and he reluctantly takes back his offer to resign. The AR had also made Robin question whether really wants to be the leader. He had always expected to grow up to become the next Batman, but the AR made him realize that he does not have the same “thing” inside of him which makes Batman able and willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of the mission. He confides in Canary that “I don’t want to be THE Batman any more.”

Miss Martian blames herself for the AR collapse. While talking to Canary her green skin turns human-coloured without her thinking about it. She reacts with shock then Canary calls her “white” until she realises that she meant Caucasian. Martian M’gann thinks that being plain-human Megan without any powers will solve her problems, but Canary tells her that not being herself is never the answer. However, she seems to accept Canary’s advise to keep practising until she finally has control.

Superboy eventually returns to the Cave after his adventure. His report concerns Batman who believes that further investigation is required. Superboy also returns to his session with Black Canary. He admits to her that he was not traumatised by the AR and was actually “at peace”. The one things he has wanted to know / wanted to be since Cadmus created him is what it would be like to be Superman. The AR gave him that chance and that made him relaxed, even happy, there. However, he now feels guilty for feeling happy when the same events so traumatised his friends. Canary admits that there is no easy answers, but that admitting how he felt is the first step in dealing with it.

Continuity

• Black Canary refused to speak for a while after her first Canary Cry almost deafened her first grade class.

Commentary

New Genesis and Apokolips

Every DC Cartoon series has to at some time or another introduce Jack Kirby’s New Gods. Jack Kirby was a legendary comic book creator who worked predominantly for Marvel Comics in the 1960s. He co-created the Fantastic Four, Hulk, and numerous other characters as an artist working alongside writer/editor Stan Lee. By the end of the decade Kirby was looking for new opportunities and crossed town to work with Marvel’s chief rivals at DC Comics. His work for DC comprised four interlocking comic books – the New Gods, Mister Miracle, Jimmy Olsen, and the Forever People – which explored the war fought on Earth by alien gods – the evil gods of Apokolips and the new gods of New Genesis.

The “Fourth World”, as it became known, was a vast almost Tolkien-level milieu that is now widely celebrated, but it almost ended up still-born as DC management, citing poor sales figures, cancelled the titles prematurely. Despite their initial lack of foresight, DC have continually minded Kirby’s concepts for characters and settings. The biggest of these draws is the central villain of the entire saga, a secular Satan figure called Darkseid. He has proven to be one of the few cosmic villains in the DC Universe will any great traction. The appeal of the figure to writers is so strong that he ended up being the principal enemy in the DCAU Superman and Justice League Unlimited cartoons. He is also the villain that Geoff Johns and Jim Lee chose to use in the New 52 refoundation of the Justice League.

The Forever People

The Forever People first appeared in Forever People #1 (Feb 1971) in a story that actually reads more like a Superman story. It’s written almost like an issue of a Superman comic that is guest-starring the Forever People. He is in Metropolis and helps the kids and Infinity Man battle Darkseid. It’s not really until the second issue that they take over their own title properly. This episode keeps the connection with Superman by having Superboy be the one to meet them first.

Within the Fourth World saga the Forever People represent the next generation of gods. As they were created at the end of the 1960s they display a strong flower-children / counter-cultural inspiration. However, they each also have a resonance with a different period of Earth’s history (something played up by later writers). They are in effect flower-child equivalents of a Norse warrior (Big Bear), a Wild West rogue (Serafin), a Victorian gentleman (Mark Moonrider)… okay, the analogy breaks down, but the point is that Kirby never uses just one or two ideas when he could mash a dozen of them together. The names Kirby used have been shortened for this episode so Big Bear and Beautiful Dreamer become Bear and Dreamer. Also, thankfully, Vykin the Black is just Vykin.

The Forever People are the original archetypes of the group of characters who merge into one single character, another pick-up from the communal ideas of the hippies. When they all touched their Mother Box – a living computer – and shouted the world “Tarru” the Forever People are replaced by an adult super-god called the Infinity Man. This pre-dates everything like Captain Planet and the Transformer combiners.

Vykin and Serafin are voiced by regulars Dee Bradley Baker (Wolf) and Kevin Michael Richardson (Martian Manhunter). Dreamer was voiced by Grey Delisle who has also voiced Barbara Gordon in Batman: Year One, Fire in Batman The Brave and the Bold, Black Canary in the Green Arrow short. She may presently be better known as the sultry voice of Catwoman in Batman: Arkham City and as the modern voice of Scooby Doo‘s Daphne. Bear was voiced by Bill Fagerbakke who has also voiced Ronnie Raymond (Firestorm’s alter ego) in Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Broadway in Greg Weisman’s Gargoyles. However, Bill will probably be most widely known as Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants. Mark Moonrider does not speak.

The Super-Cycle

As well as creating great characters Jack Kirby was also brilliant at designing their devices and vehicles. In the comic books the Forever People travelled in a large 5-person flying-cycle called the Super-Cycle — this is the Sphere or New Genesisphere that Superboy liberated in "Bereft". The Super-Cycle was picked up by Young Justice creator Peter David as his team’s transportation in the original comic book series that this cartoon is based upon. The flying car that the Forever People use in this episode is called a Whiz Wagon and was originally used by the Newsboy Legion, a group of clones created by the Cadmus Project (another Kirby production).

Intergang

Intergang was created by Jack Kirby as a criminal organization run and supplied by Desaad on Darkseid’s behalf. Although any given one of their activities were more likely than not to be a result of Desaad operating on his own. Originally Intergang was run by a seedy executive called Morgan Edge, the CEO of Galaxy Broadcasting – the “GBS” station fronted by Cat Grant which is used for all the TV slots in this show. Edge was later replaced by a second generation gangster called Ugly Mannheim. He alludes to his father, Boss Moxie, during dialogue in this episode.

Later writers, including Greg Rucka, explored the religious/cult concepts of a criminal organization sponsored by a god and turned Intergang into a cult who worshipped Darkseid and his “Crime Bible.” One of the new characters they introduced during this time was Whisper A’Daire whom first appeared in Detective Comics #743 (April 2000) as a follower of Ra’s Al Ghul she resurfaces later on working with Ugly Mannheim in the 52 weekly series.

Misc

• Miss Martian is baking again as shown in "Welcome to Happy Harbor" and in "Downtime". The Superboy was shown watching the same TV programme, i.e. static, in "Downtime".
• Kid Flash’s arm is still in plaster – it was broken in "Revelations".
• Martian Manhunter: “Trauma tends to linger, as I know you know. ” — this is an allusion to Batman’s origin and how the trauma of seeing his parents killed before him caused Bruce Wayne to dedicate his life to become the Batman.
• Wally diet: pop-corn while talking to Black Canary.
• Full Credits: Ask Greg

Characters

Feature Characters

The Team

• Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Artemis (Artemis Crock. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Kid Flash (Wally West. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Miss Martian (M’gann M’orzz/Megan Morse. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Robin (Dick Grayson. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Superboy (Conner Kent. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )

Supporting Cast

• Wolf (At the Cave when the Team awake. He is killed in the other reality while saving Superboy’s life. Last appeared in "Humanity". )

The Justice League

• Batman (Bruce Wayne. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Black Canary (Serving as the Team’s counsellor. Last appeared in person in "Humanity". )
• Captain Marvel (Billy Batson. Still hanging around the Cave. Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Martian Manhunter (Last appeared in "Failsafe". )
• Red Tornado (Last appeared in "Failsafe". )

Guest Stars

The Forever People

• Bear (Bombastic and super-strong. First Earth-16 appearance.)
• Dreamer (Has psychic and telepathic powers. First Earth-16 appearance.)
• Infinity Man (The five Forever People combined into a single giant. First Earth-16 appearance.)
• Moonrider (First Earth-16 appearance.)
• Serafin (Western obsessed sharp shooter. First Earth-16 appearance.)
• Vykin (Leader of the Forever People and custodian of Mother Box. Has magnetic powers. First Earth-16 appearance.)

Villains

• Desaad (Chief torturer of the gods of Apokolips. Has been supplying New Genesis and Apokoliptian technology to human forces, including Intergang. First Earth-16 appearance.)
• Ugly Mannheim (First Earth-16 appearance.)
• Whisper A'daire (First Earth-16 appearance.)

Opinion

Highlights

• A Superboy and his Wolf out for a joyride.

Oddities

• Mark Moonrider isn’t very talkative is he.

Unanswered Questions

• What is Intergang’s relation to the Light? What is Apokolips’ relation to the Light?

My Thoughts

As the team cope with the trauma from "Failsafe" the secret of the (New Geni)Sphere is revealed and the Forever People come to Earth. This episode is a breath of fresh air after after the darkness and trauma of last episode. Indeed this episode opens with, and is interspersed by, the team’s counselling seasons with Black Canary. These give an insight into the characters and vocalizes the Artemis and Wally tension that has been running since she appeared. I thought the admissions from Robin and Superboy were interesting. The former was horrified at where being his mentor took him while the later found peace in his mentor’s role. Robin doesn’t want to be Batman, but Superboy wants – needs – to be Superman.

The Forever People are an interesting counterpoint to Young Justice. Each of them can be seen as a close, but far more self-assured parallel of a YJ member – Dreamer is Miss Martian, Bear is Superboy, Serafin is Kid Flash, Vykin as Aqualad, and Moonrider as Robin. They are relaxed in their own identities and the merger into Infinity Man gives them an openness and intimacy that YJ do not have. Their use here is to give Superboy a juxtaposition of how a more harmonious team could operate. As we saw in "Terrors", he’s quite a different character when he’s out from under the pressure of YJ and his own need to be protective towards Megan. He relaxes and becomes a far more engaging character. The scene with Black Canary at the end of this episode shows Superboy dealing with his own emotional baggage about being Superman’s clone, but I wonder how much longer that this can run before they have to actually have the confrontation between him and Superman.

Issue Credits

Writer

Kevin Hopps, Greg Weisman

Penciller, Cover Artist

Christopher A. Jones

Inker

Dan Davis

Colourist

Zac Atkinson

Cover Colourist

Carrie Strachan

Letterer

Dezi Sienty

Assistant Editor

Michael McCalister

Editor

Jim Chadwick

Quotes

Henry Yarrow: After forty years in the arms game, Kid, let me offer you a little tip… quality trumps quantity… unless you’re talking explosives.

Synopsis “Hot Case”

Classified: General W. Eiling Eyes Only

(cont. ) As previous reported the Justice League’s proteges are conducting an investigation into the 1968 murder conviction of Nathaniel Adams. They have so far heard from Henry Yarrow, Adams’ defence counsel, that he was investigating a Vietnam smuggling ring organised by General Clement Lemar. Yarrow alleged that Lemar tried to silence the investigation by arranging an ambush designed to kill Adams and himself. They survived, but Adams blacked out whilst confronting Lemar and awoke to find him dead. With no evidence to prove his innocence you sentenced Adams to imprisonment, but he died a year later.

The sidekicks’ investigations have born fruit as they have discovered a 1960s era photograph of the conspirators against Captain Adams. Those conspirators are now seeking to conceal their tracks. A “samurai” like assassin called Rako, just a boy when the photograph was taken, has begun killing the other surviving members of the group in the photograph. His second mark was Trang, a North Vietnamese General now living in the USA. The sidekicks attempted to defend Trang from Rako, but were unsuccessful. The teens were later observed to have retreated to “Bibbos” diner in Metropolis where they appear to identify the remaining members of the smuggling ring.

The next fatal attack appeared to be against Yarrow, but it was a ruse designed to draw the teens into an ambush. Nevertheless they were able to capture Rako and former CIA Alec Rois. Yarrow, the apparent leader of the smugglers, having faked his own death once, was killed by a ricochet from his own gun. We believe that Yarrow’s death marked the conclusion of the sidekick’s investigation and that they subsequently reported back to their superiors in the Justice League.

Case file ends.

General Eiling’s comments: Captain Atom — Captain Nathaniel Adams as he was originally known, a detail he may not have revealed to the children — confirmed to me that he had instigated the investigation and that the sidekicks have extracted a psychic death-bed confession from Yarrow. There was not enough evidence for me to reopen the court-marshal, but Atom/Adams seems pleased to be able to prove his innocence to his children. Neither Adams or the sidekicks suspect that I was the person who took that damn photograph (thus being the only person in the ring who wasn’t actually in it). A stroke of luck, as I can now show my heart-felt regret at finding him guilty all those years ago. Captain Atom is now my new best friend and should serve me well in the days ahead.

Continuity

• This issue takes place during the 14th of August with a coda on the 15th.
• Captain Atom is Captain Nathaniel Adams, a USAF intelligence officer who was framed for a crime he did not commit. He was sentenced to prison in 1968 and his death was faked a year later. His imprisonment and aquittal was manipulated by General Wade Eiling (the as yet unrevealed leader of the real smuggling ring).

Commentary

• Writer Connection: This two-part story is based on a plotline from the 1980s Captain Atom series co-written by Greg Weisman.
• Artist Commentary: Penciller Christopher Jones has a commentary on his blog that breaks down of his artistic choices and challenges in preparing the cover for this issue.

Opinion

The conclusion into the murder conviction of Captain Atom, aka Nate Adams, reveals the conspiracy ranged against him and exonerates him of any wrong doing. It a great end to one of the strongest two-parters yet in this series. I particularly liked the trick of keeping Captain Atom’s secret identity a secret until the very end of the story – after all this is Young Justice’s investigation not his.

When Captain Atom first appeared at DC Comics these Vietnam-era events were only twenty years in the past, but an additional twenty-years has passed since then. I don’t know what the retirement age is for three-star generals, but whatever it is Wade Eiling must be pretty close to it. The smuggling ring plotline stands up rather well in this two-part adaptation to the Young Justice universe. There are a couple of minor plot hole – Rois’ appearance isn’t pre-figured like the others in Yarrow and Eiling’s recollections – and the visit to Polk by the girls happens “off-screen”. But, I guess you can’t expect everything when there is just so much already included in this story.

I love the expression on Randy’s face when Artemis and Aqualad tell him that his father was actually innocent – he’s trying to keep a straight face, but he really doesn’t understand what’s going on. He’s so deep into Eiling’s mythology that he can’t quite bring himself to believe what he’s hearing.

The Verdict

Characters

Feature Characters

The Team

• Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm. Shown dwelling on Tula’s picture. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Artemis (Artemis Crock. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Kid Flash (Wally West. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Miss Martian (M’gann M’orzz/Megan Morse. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Robin (Dick Grayson. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Superboy (Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )

Supporting Cast

The Justice League

• Captain Atom (Revealed to be Captain Nathaniel Adams. Serving as the Team’s espionage instructor, assigns them the cold case investigation into his own murder conviction. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9.)

Villains

The 1960s Smuggling Ring

• Alec Rois (Retired CIA agent. One of the masterminds behind the smuggling ring. Captured by the Team, but escapes from prison the following day. Appeared in the photograph in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Clement Lemar (US General. In flashback, deceased. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• General Trang (North Vietnamese General. Killed by Rako. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• General Wade Eiling (USAF General. The JAG officer who found Nathaniel Adams guilty of murder. The leader of the smuggling ring and the only member not identified by the Team’s investigation. Captain Atom’s superior officer. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Lieutenant Henry Yarrow (Nathaniel Adams’ defence counsel in 1968. The apparent leader of the smuggling ring, allowed to take the fall by Eiling. Killed by a ricochet. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Major Shirley Mason (Medical examiner at Nathaniel Adams 1968 trial. Deceased last issue, appears in an old photograph. )
• Rako (Swordsman, was a young boy protected by the smuggling ring. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Sergeant Polk (Adams’s arresting MP officer in flashback. Died in 1990, appears in an old photograph. Last appeared in "Schooled". )

Other Characters

• Peggy Eiling (Adams’ biological daughter, Wade Eiling’s adopted daughter. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )
• Randy Eiling (Adams’ biological son, Wade Eiling’s adopted son. Last appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #9. )

Cameos

• Bibbo (Owner of Bibbo’s Diner. Last appeared in "Schooled". )
• Tula (a photograph on Aqualad’s phone. )

Annotations

Cover. This issue’s cover is a homage to the first appearance of the Rako (the Cambodian) in Captain Atom (vol. 1) #7. The basic composition is the same with Rako slicing the hero, but Superboy is substituted for Captain Atom and the rest of the Team are added in the background. Chris Jones discusses the making of this cover on his blog.

Page 1. This scene, which continues from last issue, is a recreation of a murder from Captain Atom (vol. 1) #26 (Feb 1989).

Page 5. Bibbo is a supporting character from the Superman comics who is broadly based on the character of Pop Eye. The Earth-16 Bibbo and his diner first appeared in "Infiltrator" as the location where Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent meed to discuss Superman’s treatment of Superboy. The man sat at the counter holding the Daily Planet looks like a bit like Perry White.

Page 6. This photograph was discovered by the team last issue. The only character not shown so far is the CIA agent Alec Rois. In the original Captain Atom comic the character of Rois had a costumed alter ego called the Ghost. He originally worked with/for Wade Eiling and supported Eiling plans for a military coup against the US government. However, Eiling own plans changed over the years and he and Rois found themselves at odds as Rois descended into madness as the head of the Ghost cult. Rois was left alive, ghost-like, by the same energy field that powered Captain Atom. The Captain and his allies finally managed to sever that link and end Rois’s life in Captain Atom (vol. 1) #50 (Feb 1991), the last issue written by Cary Bates and Greg Weisman.

Page 7. The picture on Aqualad’s smart phone is of Tula, his female friend from Atlantis. As revealed in "Downtime", which is set two-weeks after this issue, Aqualad was thinking of returning to Atlantis to be with her.

Page 9. Henry Yarrow’s tattoo was established last issue where he was shown wearing a short-sleeved shirt.

Page 10. Artemis refers to Rois as “this ghost” as a tip of the hat to the characters regular DCU alter ego.

Page 12. Yarrow makes reference to the x-ioniser. This was a device shown in Captain Atom (vol. 1) #7 (Sept 1987) which would miraculous sharpen blades to an almost unbelievable degree. Captain Atom first met Rako when trying to recover the device.

Page 15. The original Yarrow dies in Captain Atom (vol. 2) #28 (April 1989), shot in the head by Wade Eiling. It appears that Eiling is saving Captain Atom, but he’s actually just eliminating his pawn.

Issue Credits

Writer

Kevin Hopps, Greg Weisman

Penciller, Cover Artist

Christopher Jones

Inker

Dan Davis

Colourist

Zac Atkinson

Letterer

Dezi Sienty

Assistant Editor

Michael McCalister

Editor

Jim Chadwick

Quotes

Captain Atom: Your assignment: investigate. Prove Adams’ innocence or reconfirm his guilt and report back to me.

Synopsis “Cold Case”

Classified: General W. Eiling Eyes Only

General,

We have recently become aware of an investigation by the Justice League’s proteges into the 1968 murder conviction of USAF intelligence officer Captain Nathaniel Adams. As you will be aware the details are that a JAG board overseen by yourself (then a Colonel) heard from prosecutor Lt Kevin Blankly that Adams killed General Clement Lemar in revenge for supposedly arranging an ambush in Vietnam which wiped-out Adams’ platoon. Defending council Henry Yarrow, the only other survivor of the ambush, argued that Adams had been drugged and had no recall of his confrontation with Lemar. However, medical examiner Major Shirley Mason testified that no drugs had been found in Adams’ bloodstream. The public record recalls that you found Adams guilty of Lemar’s murder and that he died in prison a year later.

It is believed that the JAG officer you spoke with earlier may have been a disguised member of the League’s group – possibly the Martian Manhunter’s niece – and that Robin may also have been present in the Pentagon. Cadmus’s Superman clone and the Flash’s sidekick were observed approaching the now retired Yarrow. It is believed that Yarrow maintained Adams’ protestations that Lemar was behind a weapons smuggling ring and that the ambush was his attempt to silence Adams’ investigation. It was from Yarrow that the youths learnt of your marriage to Adams’ widow and your adoption of his children, Peggy and Randy. They were in turn interviewed by a third pairing (Aquaman’s sidekick and a girl we believe to be affiliated with Green Arrow). As you suspected Randy defended you, his adopted father, but Peggy was more open minded to the potential innocence of her biological father.

We regret to inform you that Major Mason was found murdered, stabbed, earlier this evening. The crime scene appeared undisturbed, but a copy of “the photograph” – a potentially incriminating group photograph from the 1960s of Lemar, Mason, and a number of others – has apparently passed into the hands of the League’s investigators. The only individual they have positively identified at the moment is the North Vietnamese General Trang – currently a resident in the United States. Mason’s killer, a “samurai” like warrior called Rako, was known by Trang and it appears that Trang was his next mark. The sidekicks are currently within Trang’s compound and are believed to be engaged in combat with Rako.

Observations are continuing.

Continuity

• This issue takes place on the evening of the 13th of August into the morning of the 14th.
• Captain Nathaniel Adams of the USAF was born 30th of April, 1940.
• Aqualad’s parents are called Sha’lain’a (a native of the Atlantean city state Shayeris) and Calvin Durham (a surface dweller who once worked for Black Manta). Calvin was genetically altered by Manta so he could to breathe underwater, but he fell in love with Sha’lain’a and switched sides.

Commentary

Writer Connection

This two-part story is based on a plotline from the 1980s Captain Atom series co-written by Greg Weisman.

Artist Commentary

Penciller Christopher Jones has a commentary on his blog that breaks down of his artistic choices and challenges in preparing this issue. A particular issue was the involvement of knives/swords in a murder case that is presented in a comic that is rated “E” (meaning Everybody). That meant:

Even though that this storyline was in keeping with the tone of the Animated TV show upon which the comic was based (the show whose head writer Greg Weisman is writing the comic!), there was concern that this [Lemar's knifed corpse] was too much for a comic considered to be part of DC’s Johnny DC line. The price of trying to push the envelope of what we can get away with in the comic is that sometimes there’s some negotiation required and sometimes the battleground of those negotiations are art revisions. Ah, well…

See Jones blog for full details.

Misc.

• Kid Flash’s diet: A banana in the situation room and the Las Vegas All-You-Can-Eat buffet.

Opinion

The beginning of a new two-parter sees the Team assigned to investigate the 1968 murder conviction of USAF intelligence officer Nate Adams. I was slightly surprised by the focus on Captain Atom’s background as he’s one of the less well known members of the Justice League, but I should have considered Greg Weisman’s history with the character. This two-parter is adapting a story which Weisman original co-wrote in the 1980s so her certainly knows his material. Nevertheless, its still a brave story to adapt as the original sprawled across twice as many issues and didn’t have to deal with such a large primary cast.

It’s been a fascinating blast from the past to revisit these stories. The Bates/Weisman/Broderick run on Captain Atom lasted for over 51 issues (including annuals) and is one of the genuine hidden gems in DC’s back issue bins. It is a sprawling conspiracy epic that uses its slow burn to good effect. I think it’s a pity that this never been collected, but we can hope that it’ll appear digitally one day. The New 52 Captain Atom series isn’t bad, but there was something of its time about the original DC version. It hadn’t yet felt the influence of Watchmen so Captain Atom was allowed to just be a normal guy with amazing powers and not an inhuman-god.

Plotwise, the decision to go with a murder mystery is surprising – particularly with such a messy MO as this one – considering that this is a E for Everybody look. Jones mentions the issues with the blades on his blog (quoted above), and for the most part the fine line the tread works quite well. The flashback to Lemar’s murder explicitly sets up Adams’ knife as the murder weapon, but the Mason murder is a little more problematic. Its actually a bit confusing as to how she died. I would have expected the body to have bled out (yes I watch too much CSI) and left a large blood pool beneath her – a possible sign she was killed elsewhere and dumped her for the teens to find. The only sign we see that she’s been stabbed – slashed really – is her torn jacket.

I rarely call for more exposition, but this would have been a great moment for Robin to go all Grissom and do a very quick expert eye-ball assessment of the scene. The actual note of her having been killed by a sword is left until the telepathic chatter a few pages later and we miss the chance to make the connection between the man-with-a-sword and the woman-killed-by-a-sword ourselves. I know this is nitpicking, but this issue was so good that there really isn’t much to discuss other than to say how fantastic everything is.

Now stuff I really liked. There is just something about the way that Chris Jones draws Henry Yarrow, the expressions and stance, that makes me think he’s referencing a particular real person. There are other nice touches spread throughout the issue. A good example is the design of Peggy Eiling – she’s in her early forties and subtly shows her age, but not to such a degree that she looks “old”. The same weight is given to Rako and an impressive demonstration of what can be achieved with the relatively light linework of these animated tie-ins.

(I don’t know if its just the influence of the New 52, but I could swear I’m seeing more reviews out there on the net for this book. )

The Verdict

Characters

Feature Characters

The Team

• Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm. Reveals to Artemis that his parents were an Atlantean woman called Sha’lain’a and a surface dweller called Calvin Durham. Last appeared in "Infiltrator". )
• Artemis (Artemis Crock. Last appeared in "Infiltrator". )
• Kid Flash (Wally West. Last appeared in "Infiltrator". )
• Miss Martian (M’gann M’orzz/Megan Morse. Last appeared in "Infiltrator". )
• Robin (Dick Grayson. Last appeared in "Infiltrator". )
• Superboy (Last appeared in "Infiltrator". )

Supporting Cast

The Justice League

• Captain Atom (Serving as the Team’s espionage instructor, assigns them the cold case investigation into Nathaniel Adams’ murder conviction. )

Villains

• Rako (Swordsman, knows General Trang.First Earth-16 appearance. )

Other Characters

US Military Officers

• Captain Nathaniel Adams (USAF intelligence officer. First Earth-16 appearance. Born 30th May, 1940, officially died in prison in 1969 after serving less than a year for the murder of General Lemar. )
• General Trang (North Vietnamiese General. First Earth-16 appearance. )
• General Wade Eiling (USAF General. The JAG officer who found Nathaniel Adams guilty of murder. First Earth-16 appearance. )
• Lieutenant Henry Yarrow (Nathaniel Adams’ defence counsel in 1968. Now retired. First Earth-16 appearance. )
• Major Shirley Mason (Medical examiner at Nathaniel Adams 1968 trial. Deceased this issue. First Earth-16 appearance. )
• Randy Eiling (Adams’ biological son, Wade Eiling’s adopted son. First Earth-16 appearance. )

Civilians

• Peggy Eiling (Adams’ biological daughter, Wade Eiling’s adopted daughter. First Earth-16 appearance. )

Cameos

• Alec Rois (CIA Agent. Shown in the photograph found with Mason, identified next issue. First Earth-16 appearance. )
• Arlington Police Officers (attending the Mason murder scene)
• Clement Lemar (US General. In flashback, deceased. First Earth-16 appearance. )
• Lieutenant Kevin Blankly (Officer who prosecuted Nathaniel Adams in 1968. In flashback. First Earth-16 appearance. )
• Sergeant Polk (Adams’s arresting MP officer in flashback. First Earth-16 appearance. )

Annotations

Cover. The picture of Captain Atom pointing out of the cover with a slogan “Wants You” is a pastiche of a James Flagg’s “Uncle Sam”. It was an iconic recruiting post created during the First World War and recommissioned during the Second.

Artist Chris Jones goes into detail about the creation of this cover on his blog and includes early sketches which showed a radically different design. The suggestion for the Flagg pastiche came from writer Greg Weisman, but Jones added the reflection of the team which had been a feature of his earlier sketches.

Page 1. I like the arrange of the Team here. Robin already knows it all and the others are variously distracted and bored. Miss Martian gaze breaks the isolation of her own panel and is directed towards Superboy in his separate panel.

Page 2. The original Captain Atom was created Steve Ditko, the artist who co-created Spider-Man with writer/editor Stan Lee at Marvel Comics. Ditko eventually parted company with Lee and started working for a low-budget publisher called Charlton Comics. At Charlton Ditko helped create/work on a string of characters and these included Captain Atom. He first appeared in Charlton’s Strange Adventures #33 (March 1960), but the property did not last past the start of the 1960s and was left fallow until the 1980s when it was picked up by DC Comics. There were plans for DC to launch their own version of the Charlton Comics characters with a mini-series written Alan Moore. However, that project eventually became the Watchmen graphic novel and the Captain Atom character was reinterpreted as the Doctor Manhattan character.

DC eventually launched their own ongoing Captain Atom title with Captain Atom (vol. 1) #1 (March 1987). This was written by Cary Bates and drawn by Pat Broderick and the first issue carried a note in the credits saying “Special thanks to Greg Weisman”, the same Greg Weisman who co-produces Young Justice and co-writes this spin-off comic book. Weisman would receive a co-writer or co-plotter credit from issue #10 (Dec 1987) onwards. For 50 issues Bates and Weisman created a densely plotted story that wove together the Captain’s origins during the Cold War and Vietnam War and his re-emergence into the modern world. Bates would later write for Weisman’s Gargoyles cartoon series at Disney.

Page 3. I’ll leave spoilers until next issue, but suffice it to say that Captain Atom has a personal reason for wanting the Team of investigate the murder conviction of Nathaniel Adams. This story is loosely based on events from Captain Atom (vol. 1) #9 (Nov 1987) and #26-28 (Feb-April 1989).

Page 5. Wade Eiling first appeared in Captain Atom (vol. 1) #1 (March 1987) as Captain Atom’s superior officer and occasional nemesis. He’s the type of General who is involved in black-ops up to his eye balls and thinks he knows what’s best for his country. Eiling is not inherently a badguy unless you happen to be on the moral high-ground opposite one of his dirty ops. This is Eiling’s first chronological appearance in the Earth-16 Universe, but he – or a psychic simulaiton of him – would appear as the leader of the military forces in the episode "Failsafe".

Miss Martian disguises herself as a Captain from the Judge Advocate General’s office – the US military’s judiciary – but the name of her cover isn’t given. Artist Chris Jones however notes that she’s deliberately basing her appearance of that Sterling Rockette from "Infiltrator". http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/?p=852

Page 6. The details of Captain Atom’s trial was covered in Captain Atom (vol. 1) #9 (Nov 1987), which was the issue directly before Weisman took over as co-plotter. The details her are broadly consistent, but the list of names of those involved with the trial and with the conspiracy have been conflated for brevity.

Page 7-10. The Henry Yarrow character in this two-part story is a merging of two characters. The first is Sgt Goslin who was the other survivor of the VC ambush and the original Henry Yarrow who was indeed Adams defence counsel. The original procescutor was Major Alfred Gargan, one of the witness was Lemar’s radio operator Corporal Hart.

Shown three times is an eagle tattoo on Yarrow’s left arm (Pavlov’s Tattoo?).

Page 11. The photograph takes the place of a list of names Captain Atom found in Captain Atom (vol. 1) #26.

Page 14. Randy and Peggy are the Adams children from the comic. In the original version Peggy married Goslin, Adams fellow survivor of the VC ambush.

Page 15. Aqualad relates his parents names and reveals that his father was Calvin Durham, a former follower of Black Manta. The comic book Durham first appeared in Adventure Comics #452 (July 1977). At the time Black Manta was portrayed as an African-American who was using the civil-rights issue as a smokescreen to recruit angry young men as his henchmen. Cal Durham was once of those henchmen, but he realised that Manta was only motivated by vengeance towards Aquaman and switched sides to help the underwater hero.

This issue is set several weeks prior to Black Manta’s attack on Atlantis in "Downtime".

Page 16-20. General Trang first appeared, and died, in Captain Atom (vol. 1) #26 (Feb 1989). The original comic used an assassin called Bolt to hunt down the conspirators instead of Rako and Young Justice take Captain Atom’s place in uncovering the conspiracy, but the background details are approximately similar. Bolt killed Gargan and Hart in the original issue #9, but it was Rako (originally called the Cambodian) who was sent to kill General Trang in issue #26. Both Bolt and the Cambodian were working for the true leader of the smuggling ring, a hooded individual called the Ghost.

The Rako first appeared in Captain Atom (vol. 1) #7 (Sept 1987) as a mysterious costumed agent who sought to prevent Captain Atom from retrieving a device called the x-ionizer. It had the ability to radically harden and sharpen any solid edge, to temper a normal knife or sword into something that could easily cut through steel or super-human skin. Rako has appeared earlier in issue #7 of the series, but reappeared in issue #26 where he murdered General Trang – the confrontation at the end of this issue.

Episode Credits

Cast

Artemis

Stephanie Lemelin

Robin

Jesse McCartney

Miss Martian

Danica McKellar

Superboy, Zatara

Nolan North

Aqualad

Khary Payton

Kid Flash

Jason Spisak

Red Tornado, Wade Eiling, Jason Bard

Jeff Bennett

Iris Allen-West

Nicole Dubuc

Batman

Bruce Greenwood

Cat Grant

Masasa Moyo

Martian Manhunter, David Reid, Green Lantern

Kevin Michael Richardson

Crew

Writer

Nicole Dubuc

Director

Jay Oliva

Music, Theme Music

Kristopher Carter,Michael McCuistion,Lolita Ritmanis

Voice Direction

Jamie Thomason

Animation Timing Director

James Tim Walker

Storyboard

Charles E. Drost III, Paul Harmon, Jeff Johnson, Robert Sourza

Lead Character Design

Phil Bourassa

Character Design

Dusty Abell, Jerome Moore, Coran Stone

Prop Design

Andy Chiang, Eugene Mattos

Animation Services

Lotto Animation Inc.

Animation Director

Heechul Kang (supervising), Sangjoon Lee, Myeonghwan Park, Junsik Cho

Producer

Brandon Vietti, Greg Weisman

Executive Producer

Sam Register

Quotes

Aqualad: We are Earth’s heroes now.Superboy: So what are we waiting for, a theme song?

Superboy: I’m not Superman.General Eiling: I don’t know who you are son and right now I don’t care. You wear the S and you got the job done.

Synopsis “Failsafe”

The approach towards the Earth of a massive alien mothership is answered by Green Lanterns John Stewart and Hal Jordan and a spaceworthy version of Batman’s Batplane. The Lanterns challenge the alien ship to identify itself, but it responds by disintegrating them. The bomb-bay doors of the Batplane open, disgorging the Justice League’s heaviest-hitters – Superman, Captain Atom, the Martian Manhunter, and Captain Marvel. However, they too are disintegrated by the alien craft and its squadrons of smaller fighters. The Batman manages to eject from the Batplane when it is targeted by the fighters, but his survival pod is destroyed before he can escape. The entire attack has been watched by the League’s side kicks from the Cave headquarters. The teenagers, who seem strangely passive after witnessing the deaths of their mentors, are told by the Red Tornado that should the rest of the League fall it will be up to them to defend the Earth.

The alien fighters straffe Earth’s cities in an onslaught that is played out on national TV. Central City reporter Iris Allen-West is saved from one group of invaders by the Flash and Zatara moments before they and she are disintegrated by a second wave. News anchor Cat Grant tries to keep her composure as she switches to events in Taipei, Taiwan, but her viewers are horrified to see the Hawks, Green Arrow, and Black Canary die. Grant then tells her viewers that Aquaman, Icon, and the Atom have all been reported killed. Wonder Woman and Red Tornado are killed investigating the alien mothership which has landed on top of Smallville. The Tornado gets one last message to the Cave saying that he fears he is the last of the Justice League moments before he is lost.

Aqualad bravely notes that “We are Earth’s heroes now.” Earth’s weapons and frontal assaults against the enemy have been proven highly ineffective so they will have to choose a new strategy. The Team track the concentration of alien ships and find that a lone craft is investigating Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic. Aqualad decides to capture and repurpose its weapon. The Team arrive in the frozen north after changing their stealth costumes white to camouflage with the snow. Miss Martian’s telekinesis disables the ship while Artemis’s foam arrows seal the aliens inside. Everything is going as planned until Wolf is disintegrated saving Superboy’s life. Superboy separates the alien craft’s weapon from its frame and begins integrating it with Miss Martian’s bioship. However, while they work two more alien ships show up. Artemis’s blows them out of the sky, but is disintegrated in retaliation.

Miss Martian and Kid Flash are horrified at Artemis’s death, but Aqualad thinks fast and destroys the remains of the her killer’s craft before it can attack again. They had watched their parents and mentors slaughtered with detachment, but Artemis death profoundly affects the team. Kid Flash is enraged, Miss Martian is distraught, and Robin is silent. Aqualad tells them that her death cannot be in vain and orders the bioship to the Hall of Justice. They find General Wade Eiling’s tanks and troops try to repel the invaders will little luck. Superboy’s arrival turns the briefly turns tide and the troops mistake him for Superman. Superboy corrects them, but Eiling tells him “You wear the S and you got the job done. ” Eiling and the Team then fallback to the shattered remains of the Hall of Justice.

For a moment the Team look up at the statues of the Justice League’s founders and try to accept that they are really gone. Miss Martian is having the biggest problem with the loss, but she suddenly starts digging through the rubble with her telekinesis to reveals the still living Martian Manhunter. He has no memory of what happened after he was “disintergrated” and his mind is clouded, but he knows there was something important he had to tell them. Kid Flash is inspired and has Robin scan the alien’s weapons. The Kid theorises that the weapon is actually a teleportation beam, like a zeta-beam, and that Artemis is actually safe somewhere in a prison camp or ship. They don’t have time to consider the ramifications further because the Hall comes under attack by another wave of fighters. The Manhunter has to go through the slow process of giving them computer access one at a time so they can beam to the relative safety of the Cave. Only a few of them make it before Aqualad sacrifices his own life to force the Manhunter through the teleporter to safety.

With Aqualad dead Robin assumes command of the operation. He reasons that if the aliens are teleporting their opponents then the only logical place that they could be sent would be to the mothership in Smallville. His plan is for Superboy to create a diversion whilst the rest of them sneak inside. Miss Martian is appalled and tells him that Aqualad “would never sacrifice a team mate.” “No”, replies Robin “he would sacrifice himself” and calls Aqualad’s self-sacrifice at the Hall a mistake that has left the Team without its leader. As they prepare for the attack the Team broadcast a message to the survivors around the world telling them that they will survive and that the “Earth will never surrender!”

Miss Martian and the Martian Manhunter ghost into the mothership under the cover of darkness. She sends a message to Superboy telling him that she loves him moments before he goes to work against the ships perimeter defences. The mothership’s bay doors open and a stream of fighters exit to confront Superboy. Kid Flash then uses the open doors to piggyback Robin inside at superspeed. Their gambit worked, but Miss Martian collapses when she feels Superboy die. Kid Flash is still adamant that they’ll find him with Artemis, but the Martian Manhunter corrects him. His mind is clearer now and he tells them that there is no detention facility. Robin’s scan’s confirm this, but he tells them that their mission is still on, they must still destroy the mothership.

The four survivors eventually find the ship’s power core – a massive glowing sphere that has its own gravity field. Miss Martian telekinetically lowers them onto its surface so that Robin can plants his bombs and sets a count down. However, their escape it cut off by a set of blast doors. Robin orders the Manhunter to ghost Miss Martian out of the ship and tells them that he and Kid Flash will follow on. However, after they’ve left Kid Flash nods in acknowledgement to Robin that their own escape is impossible. The explosives go off moments later and the mothership is consumed in a vast fireball. Miss Martian watches the inferno from a safe distance with the Manhunter. In a harsh tone the older Martian tells his tearful niece that it must end now. He then stabs her through the heart. A split second later Megan awakes to find herself, Superboy, Artemis, and the rest of the team safe and sound and back in the Cave’s training hall.

The Team are dazed and traumatised from their experience. Captain Marvel holds the Miss Martian as she cries almost uncontrollable and Superboy stands nearby unsure of what to do. Batman explains that they were in an artificial reality, a training exercise, created by the Martian Manhunter telepathically linking their minds together. They knew going in that it was not real – that is why they were impassive to the deaths of the entire Justice League – , but they were not aware that it was a no-win scenario designed to test them in the worst possible situation. However, the shock of seeing Artemis “die” caused Miss Martian’s powerful subconscious mind to interpret the events as real. She unwittingly overrode the Manhunter’s control and made everybody believe that the events of the simulation were real. Even those of them that were killed in the simulation believed that they were “dead” and remained comatose.

The Martian Manhunter had to insert himself into that world, but Miss Martian’s power almost made him forget as well. It was only at the end, when the psychic noise from the “living” heroes had vanished, that he was able to reassert his own control and pull them all back into the waking world. The Manhunter apologises to them and says he never knew a training exercise could be “so dangerous, so damaging.” He turns to leave and almost collapses. The strain on him has been massive, but he quietly confesses to Batman and Red Tornado that, while Miss Martian cannot be held responsible for what happened, she has the strongest telepathic mind that he has ever encountered.

Continuity

• The training scenario takes place on the 15th of October, they all awaken on the 16th of October.
• The Martian Manhunter’s teleport code of 07. Miss Martian’s code is B-05. Robin is B-01. Kid Flash is B-03.
• Miss Martian has the “strongest telepathic mind” that the Martian Manhunter has ever encountered and is stronger even than he.

Commentary

The Invaders

The Invaders in this episode are never identified and we never see one of them “in person” as it were. The shape of their mothership is suggestive of the Imperium from Justice League “Secret Origins”.

This episode also references the 1953 adaptation of War of the Worlds. The alien’s death-ray kills its target by turning them into a glowing mass through which their skeleton is shown, this is similar to the War of the Worlds special effect where a person skeleton would be seen before they died. The smaller alien fighters are not unlike the alien craft from the War of the World’s with a general curved wing-configuration with a central column/eye stalk.

Both of the War of the Worlds and “Secret Origins” invasions were staged from Mars and this telepathic scenario was created by the Martian Manhunter. Was he hinting at something to come or just playing with archetypes?

The Military

In this episode we see three characters – at least three of whom are credited with voice roles – from the US military who also exist in the DC Comics. The most prominent of these is General Wade Eiling, Captain Atom’s superior officer as shown in current issues of the Young Justice (vol. 2) comic book. The other two are Jason Bard and David Reid. Bard was a detective and love interest of Batgirl’s from the 1970s while David Reid is the alter ego of the super-hero Magog. The voices of the solders are supplied by the normal supporting cast with Jeff Bennett (Red Tornado) voicing Eiling and Bard and Kevin Michael Richardson (Martian Manhunter) voicing Bard.

Full Credits List

• Ask Greg

Misc.

• The Atom is mentioned in the casualty list by Cat Grant, despite him not having yet appeared on scene.
• The aliens choose Smallville as their base of operations. Smallville is Clark Kent’s (Superman) adopted home town.
• “Hello Wally!” – Kid Flash copies Miss Martian’s “Hello Megan!” catch phrase.

Characters

Feature Characters

The Team

• Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm. Last appeared in "Humanity". He is killed in the other reality while saving the Martian Manhunter. )
• Artemis (Artemis Crock. Last appeared in "Humanity". She is killed in the other reality in the Arctic. )
• Kid Flash (Wally West. Last appeared in "Humanity". He is killed in the other reality when the mothership blows up. Shows a lot of concern/hope when Artemis is “killed” and then revealed to possibly be alive. )
• Miss Martian (M’gann M’orzz/Megan Morse. Last appeared in "Humanity". Tells Superboy that she loves him. The Martian Manhunter discovers that she has the most powerful, yet untrained, telepathic mind he has ever encountered. She unwittingly seizes control of the dream reality until the Manhunter “kills” her to shock her awake. )
• Robin (Dick Grayson. Last appeared in "Humanity". He is killed in the other reality when the mothership blow up. )
• Superboy (Conner Kent. Last appeared in "Humanity". He is killed in the other reality while providing a distraction for the attack on the mothership. Discovers that Superman has a Fortress of Solitude. )

Supporting Cast

• Wolf (At the Cave when the Team awake. He is killed in the other reality while saving Superboy’s life. Last appeared in "Humanity". )

Guest Stars

The Justice League

• Batman (Bruce Wayne. He is killed in the other reality during the first wave of the invasion. Last appeared in "Revelations". )
• Captain Marvel (Billy Batson. Still hanging around the Cave. He is killed in the other reality during the first wave of the invasion. Last appeared in "Humanity". )
• Martian Manhunter (Setup the telepathic training scenario, but lost control of it to Megan’s subconscious. He is killed in the other reality during the first wave of the invasion, but had to re-insert himself in order to shut it down. Last appeared in "Revelations". )
• Red Tornado (Back in the Cave after the events of ""and working with the Justice League. )

Cameos

The Justice League inside the Artificial Reality

• Green Lantern John Stewart (First spoken appearance. Killed in the other reality during the first wave of the invasion. )
• Captain Atom, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Superman (Killed in the other reality during the first wave of the invasion.)
• Black Canary, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Hawkwoman (Killed in the other reality while defending Taipei” )
• Flash (He is killed in the other reality during the defence of Central City. )
• Zatara (He is killed in the other reality during the defence of Central City.)
• Wonder Woman (She is killed in the other reality during the defence of Smallville)

Other guest stars and supporting cast inside the Artificial Reality

• Alfred Pennyworth, Barbara Gordon, Betty Kane, Citizens of Gotham City (Inside the training scenario. Shown listening to Robin and Kid Flash’s broadcast)
• Atom (Inside the training scenario. Mentioned as dead by Cat Grant. First Earth-16 reference. )
• Cat Grant (Inside the training scenario. Television reporter for GBS. )
• Denny (Inside the training scenario. Iris’s cameraman.)
• Garth, Red Arrow, Rocket, Tula, Zatanna (Inside the training scenario. Shown preparing for battle at the Cave.)
• General Wade Eiling (Inside the training scenario. 3-star general in the US army. )
• Icon (Inside the training scenario. Mentioned as dead by Cat Grant)
• Iris Allen-West (Inside the training scenario. The Flash’s wife. Television reporter in Central City. )
• Lucas Carr, Marvin White, Wendy Harris, Karen Beecher, Mal Duncan, Happy Harbour High-School Students (Inside the training scenario. Shown listening to Superboy and Miss Martian’s broadcast. )

Opinion

Highlights

• The Arctic Costumes – even Robin complete with Owlman like parka hood.

Oddities

• If this isn’t a time to be putting on Doctor Fate’s helmet I don’t know what is.

Open Questions

• Just how powerful is Megan?
• When will KF finally get a clue about his feeling for Artemis?
• Why did the simulation show specific people? Were these pulled from the Team’s collective memory? They knew Wade Eiling from the comic book and Iris Allen-West is Wally’s aunt, but where do they know Jason Bard from?

My Thoughts

Young Justice get put through the Kobayashi Maru, but Miss Martian’s unwitting reprogramming of the scenario doesn’t quite match Captain Kirk’s efforts. When I first started watching this I though “oh, it’s a holodeck” episode — that usual arrogant fan think you get when who assume you’ve second guessed the show’s plot or weekly trope — yet that expectation was nicely subverted.

The viewer’s own “they’re not really dead” reaction is exactly the same as the Young Justice’s reaction to seeing the Justice League killed. Its a subtle bit of writing, but as the characters become more emotionally engaged with the simulated reality so too does the viewer. The characters are in on the unreality of the scenario from the beginning, but as they forget that so are we made to forget by the strength of their reactions. It is a masterfully played twist that is backed up by a suitably traumatised re-entrance into their actual reality.

While the scenario was an illusion the emotional trauma that the Team went through was very real and I expect that this will be played out in episodes to come. The Kid Flash/Artemis subplot was nicely used with KF not quite realising himself why Artemis’s death resonated so strongly for him. Likewise Superboy was forced to (Super)man-up and we saw what Robin would really be like as Team leader. I would have liked to have known more about the alien invaders, but they were never the point of this episode and remained suitably generic.

Issue Credits

Writer

Dan Jurgens

Penciller

Aaron Lopresti

Inker

Matt Ryan

Letterer

Travis Lanham

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Cover Penciller

David Finch

Cover Inker

Peter Steigerwald

Editor

Rex Ogle

Quotes

August General: Stand your ground, girl. We fight until we can no longer do so.Godvia: Judging by the numbers, that won’t be long.

Synopsis “The Signal Masters Part 3″ (20-pages)

Previously: The UN Head of Intelligence, Andre Biggs, had sought to form a new incarnation of the Justice League from sanctioned international superheroes with transparent public identities. He put Booster Gold in charge of his manufactured group, but they were forced to retreat from their first mission in disarray. They had been sent to investigate the disappearance of a UN science team in Peru, but discovered a powerful robotic giant – the first of four “Signalmen” to appear. Booster only survived as leader because he had the backing of China’s August-General-In-Iron and the USA’s Batman. However, the Hall of Justice has been destroyed by arsonists and Booster has yet to resolve the situation with the giants.

Biggs surveys the situation from a van parked outside the ruins of the Hall of Justice. Under Booster’s direction the JLI has split into four groups to infiltrate the caverns beneath the four Signalmen. In Peru, Booster uses his blasters to create a with broad spectrum glare he hopes will blind/distract the Peruvian Signalman whilst Batman sneaks into the cavern below. The detective finds traces of the UN science team and presses deeper. Rocket Red and Ice investigate a Signalman in the Russian Arctic and discover that there is also a chamber buried deep beneath it. Ice forms an ice sphere which she and Red use as a bathysphere to dive to the bottom of the ocean floor. From there they break through into the cavern. Rocket Red’s sensors show the the cavern is older than humanity.

In South Africa, Fire repeats Booster distraction stunt and Vixen borrows badger tunnelling powers to dig down to their Signalman’s cavern. Vixen and Fire follow the tunnels deeper, but are over run by small rock-like humanoids. The creatures the carry their unconscious bodies deeper into the cave system. In Canada, the local Signalman suddenly becomes active firing a powerful beam of light/energy into the sky. The August General decides that it is already distracted enough so he and Godvia jump down a hole created by the General. Once underground they attacked by the same rock-humanoids as attacked Fire and Vixen. The General scares them off, but they are unprepared for what they find deeper in the cavern.

Batman has reached the bottom of the Peruvian cavern system. Booster joins him to investigate large machines which are maintained by the rock-humanoids. Batman tells Booster to keep the guards off him while he hacks into their computer system. He realises that somebody is watching the giants, but Booster and he are over-run by the rock creatures. Biggs becomes impatient after he loses contact with Booster and despairs when he’s told that a massive spaceship has entered Earth’s orbit. Green Lantern Guy Gardner overhears the news about the space ship and decides to investigate on his own. Each of the Signalmen is shooting its eye beams into the sky and those beams meet at a point alongside the space ship. Garnder cuts his way into the ship, but he is clobbered from behind by its occupant, Peraxxus.

Commentary

Preview and writer interview: AICN Comics Q&A.  Jurgens addresses why the Blue Beetle was excluded from this version of the JLI:

We’re dealing with characters who have public identities and personas. Blue Beetle doesn’t qualify.

Writer Interview: Big Cast, More Character Definition: Dan Jurgens on JLI #3

Writer Interview: Jurgens talks fast-moving JLI at Newsarama

Nrama: Does Booster really have a “Booster Cave?” [as mentioned in JLI #2] Will we see it soon?Jurgens: Of course, the “Booster Cave” is real! In a sense, anyway. And, yes, you will see it.

And on the chance from issue #1 and #2 to the pairing in issue #3:

In the first two issues, we wanted to get as much “on screen” as possible. Next month, you’ll see quite a change. We slow things down and split the team up so there’s more focus on them as individuals. I think it’s a nice change-up after two issues of fastballs.

Andy Kubert’s Flashpoint design for Godvia:

From DC’s The Source.

Opinion

Issue three sees the JLI split into small groups and that gives the creative team breathing room to focus on one-on-one characterisation. This change in focus is appreciated by reviewers. While IGN’s first reviews rated issues #1 (4/10) and 2 (5/10) quite-low Joey Esposito observed that issue #3 “starts to get to the good stuff – character interaction and rock monsters” and gave this issue 7/10. Likewise at Comic Book Resources, who had rated issues #1 (2.5/5) and #2 (1.5/10) quite-low, Doug Zawisza noted  that that this series is now “hitting a nice stride” and gave the third issue 3.5/5. Looking at issue #1 away from the shine of the New 52 launch I think that there is a clear progression from issue-to-issue of this series getting incrementally better. It’ll be interesting to see how high this team can push it.

Despite the general uptick in reviewers comments there remains one critique that many of them agree on – namely the plotting of the series. Nicole D’Andria (Player Affinity) sums up a lot a reviewers opinions when she writes that:

An epic feel from the gravity of the situation is nowhere to be found. It is a good sci-fi story and a great introduction to the characters and their shortcomings, but the events do not feel heavy because the characters seem less afraid than they should be. At this point there is also too much mystery.

Or as Grey Scherl (Inside Pulse) puts it “Three issues in and I would have expected a bit more content.” It’s almost beginning to feel like this group is just too large. The increased characterisation was appreciated in this issue, but the weight of trying do get some line or moment for each character doesn’t leave much room for the ongoing plot. It’s a tough balancing act and one I’m glad I don’t have to perform.

I thought that it was the wonderfully old fashioned to use the split-into-groups routine for this issue. It’s a tactic that dates back to the Justice Society and works by allowing Jurgens and Lopresti to focus on individual pairings rather than every possible interaction at once. The pairings work logically within the story (e.g., Rocket Red and Ice in the Russian Artric), but they also gives us different pairings than we might have otherwise have considered. Its interesting that Fire and Vixen are only just starting to get to know each other as each women’s backstory includes time as a high-profile international model. The General and Godvia was perhaps the most surprising and goes to show how unprepared she is and how much the General reserves his fury for those who actually deserve it.

I wasn’t too impressed with David Finch’s alternative cover to Justice League #1, but his cover to this issue is wonderfully atmospheric. Aaron Lopresti and co.’s interior art is excellent and continues to improve, from its already high standard, issue to issue. I particularly liked liked the sequence with the August General underground where their surroundings are lit by the glow from his staff.

There was a comment on the iFanboy discussion thread that caught my attention, commenter JesseG was expressing his displeasure with the book’s contents and has pithily said that it

this felt like it belonged on Cartoon Network after an episode of Ben10

Think about what the New 52 launch was meant to achieve, the new audiences that it was meant to bring into comics. It is exactly the same teen audience which would be watching Cartoon Network after Ben10 has finished. DC are even going as far to have their own DC Nation branded space on the channel. So in that sense, I think JesseG’s comment shows that the relaunch strategy is working. DC have successful recast this book (at least) to appeal to a new audience. Whether that potential audience bothers to read the book is another matter.

The Verdict

Characters

Feature Characters

Justice League International

• August General In Iron (General Zhifu Fang of China. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2. )
• Batman (Bruce Wayne of the USA. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2)
• Booster Gold (Michael Jon Carter from Canada. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2)
• Fire (Beatriz Bonilla Da Costa from Brazil. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2)
• Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Of the United States. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2. )
• Godvia (Dora Leigh of the United Kingdom. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2. )
• Ice (Tora Olafsdotter from Norway. Last appeared in Asides From Twitter for 2012-02-01 #. )
• Rocket Red (Gavril Ivanovich of Russia. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2. )
• Vixen (Mari Jiwe McCabe from Zambesi. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2. )

Supporting Cast

• Andre Biggs (Head of UN Intelligence. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2. )
• Emerson Esposito (Assistant of Andre Biggs. Last appeared in [cef  ref="justice-league-international-vol-3|2"]. )

Villains

• Signalmen (Robotic giants. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2.)
• Peraxxus (Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #2.)

Annotations

Page 1. How long until a character uses the line “Damn it Biggs! Where are you?”

Page 3. Booster Gold: “even by 25th century tech”. Booster Gold is a time traveller from the 25th century who came back in time to play as being a superhero. His weaponry was stolen from displays at the Science Museum and included a 500-year-old Legion flight ring (shown prominently on page 2) which was actually a relic from a time 500-years into Boosters own future.

Page 6. Rocket Red and Fire first showed interest in each other in Justice League: Generation Lost #21 (Early May 2011). He made her laugh why they were all trying to deal with the (apparent) death of a team-mate and she kissed him. How much of anything in Generation Lost remains in continuity isn’t clear.

Ice sports a sticking plaster on her face – the sole reminder of her “injuries” that caused Booster to hurriedly evacuate the JLI from Peru. Was she really that badly hurt or was Booster massively over-reacting?

Page 7. Rocket Red “Before man existed” would be more than 200,000 years ago.

Page 10. Vixen’s line her about Andre having to convince her to leave Africa is a little odd as she has previously been a member of the full Justice League in the old continuity. She was a member of the League during the Detroit era and during Brad Meltzer’s run. Vixen was an international supermodel whose career took her to the United States. There she used her Tantu Totem, the magical totem that grants her power, to become the Vixen. How much of that has changed post-Flashpoint is still fluid. What would also be interested to know is how Vixen relates to the Kingdom – the defunct African superhero team that’s part of the backstory of Judd Winick’s Batwing.

Fire call’s herself a thrillseeker, but her public life isn’t much different than Vixen – they were both international supermodels. However, Fire had begun work as a secret agent for the Brazilian government and was later recruited as a Knight agent for Checkmate. Again, how much of that has changed post-Flashpoint is still fluid.

Page 12. The General was originally a normal Chinese man, but he was transformed into an iron version of a figure from the First Emperors Terracotta Army by exposure to bioweapons from a crashed Durlanian space and the resulting “cure” created for him by Chinese government scientists.

Page 19. In Panel 3 Guy pauses to close up the hole in the hull in made of the way in. It’s a small detail, but one that made me smile.

Issue Credits

Writer

Dan Jurgens

Penciller, Cover Artist

Aaron Lopresti

Inker

Matt Ryan

Letterer

Travis Lanham

Colourist, Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Editor

Rex Ogle

Quotes

Batman: We weren’t gathered by a third party, to be sent on a mission we were unprepared for. You don’t know your team’s capabilities. Learn from this, Booster — follow your gut and make the team yours.

Synopsis “The Signal Masters Part 2″ (20-pages)

Previously: The United Nations seeks to found their own version of the the Justice League, an international superhero group, which they hope will redress the concerns that many people have over the international presence of unsanctioned and unaccountable superheroes. The new group will only contain heroes whose identities are known and go unmasked. It is overseen by UN Head of Intelligence Andre Biggs and led in the field by Booster Gold (a hero Biggs overestimates his ability to control). However, Batman is dubious about the plan and votes himself on to the team. Their first mission is to investigate the disappearance of a missing research team in Peru, but the team are scattered by the sudden appearance of a massive humanoid robot.

The UN’s take over of the Justice League name and the Hall of Justice (its old headquarters) is vocally protested by a minority in the USA. Biggs surveys the damage after a small number of conspirators burn down the Hall to keep it out of the UN’s hands. He hope’s there won’t be any more bad news, but he hasn’t heard from Peru yet. The team scatter before the massive robot, but it gives no reaction to their presence. It starts firing blasts of energy skyward, before refocusing them on the ground in front of it. It’s all Booster’s group can do to stop from becoming collateral damage. Ice is hurt in the confusion so Booster signals a strategic withdrawal against the angry protests of Rocket Red.

There is a tense meeting between Biggs and Booster’s team in front of the ruined Hall of Justice. The man from the UN is worried about the public relations disaster and how the Batman’s presence undermines his efforts to present a group without secret identities. He berated Booster for leaving Peru and even calls him a “coward”. Green Lantern Guy Gardner, who had seen Ice’s injury on TV, arrives to chime it. Booster almost walks, but the August General In Iron and Batman stand up and say that they would he “honoured” to follow him. That silences any criticism, at least for the moment.

Skeets, Booster’s robotic companion, contacts him with news that three other robot giants have appeared. Each is firing energy, a signal, into space and it appears that their agenda is more than just random destruction. Their signal is received by computer system out in deep space. That computer awakens an armoured figure who declairs that “Planet 3-147 [Earth] dies today.”

Continuity

• Guy Gardner and Tora Olafsdotter have dated, but it wasn’t serious.

Commentary

• Author Interview: The Outhousers: Dan Jurgen’s The International Exchange on JLI #2.

Opinion

The reviews for this issue tend to bit a little bi-polar. Its a fairly straight forward – even old fashioned/school – superhero book, ACB even triumphes its accessibility and says that its “breath of fresh air in a reboot full of sex, violence and angst”. The counter point is put by Jeese Schedeen (IGN) who argues that it “ignores too much of what made the classic JLI stories so memorable”. Those two counterpoints show up as a string of 1-2 stars and as a string of 4-5 stars. The old JLI was so fondly remembered that anything which isn’t formula Giffen and DeMatteis was always going to disappoint a large crowd. Nevertheless, I do not think this is a bad book, but it has been missing “a little of the fun from Justice League: Generation Lost“, as Alan Rapp (Razer Fine Reviews) puts it so well.

The individual characters are starting to come through more strongly with Rocket Red gung-ho Russian nationalism nicely balanced by the August-General-In-Iron’s calm Chinese stoicism. I’ve always found the General fascinating as he is deeper character than he at first appears, unlike Rocket Red who is still something of a diamond in the rough. As a fellow Brit I concur with Mart Gray’s assessment that Godvia:

is a disgrace to the United Kingdom, with her heavy-handed flirting at a time when heroism is needed. I’ve no idea why writer Dan Jurgens would reduce a character so awesome she could turn her hair into an umbrella, complete with transparent eyescreen, into a desperate trollop, but he needs to redeem or repatriate her, and sharpish.

It is a pity that the character we say in Flashpoint hasn’t really translated into the JLI stage. Andy Kubert’s character designs for the Flashpoint Godvia  were recently posted online by DC and they have a more regal quality to them. I guess there may be a class issue here, but I don’t see why the British heroine should have to be such a damn chav. However, at least Godvia has a personality, as Minhquan Nguyen observes “her fellow females all have a sameness to their dialogue, making them exceptionally interchangeable”. Both World of Black Heroes and Grey Scherl (Inside Pulse) question Vixen’s involvement when she doesn’t actually do much more recognise Africa on a computer screen.

On the plus side, almost everybody loves Aaron Lopresti’s art. It’s big and bold, but at the same time its quite fluid and there is a hint of Kevin Maguire’s spark for facial expressions. The new villain is imposing and suitably generic – there are traces of Mongul, Darkseid, Thanos, et al in that design – so we’ll see how he plays out in future issues. The appearance of random giants around the world does ring some alarm bells for me — I remember how the Millennium Giants crossover crashed and burned — but, its nice to see that superheroes are maintaining the old tradition of standing around and talking whilst the world is in danger. If this group were to any more vocal in times of crisis they’d need to bring back General Glory.

I had fears about the quality of this series based purely on the first issue, but those concerns are shown to be groundless. The second issue gets past the team introductions that plagued last issue and gets its teeth into the start of what promises to be a good run.

The Verdict

Characters

Feature Characters

Justice League International

• August General In Iron (General Zhifu Fang of China. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1. Speaks up in support of Booster as leader. )
• Batman (Bruce Wayne of the USA. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1)
• Booster Gold (Michael Jon Carter. It has been revealed in pre-launch interviews that Booster is now Canadian. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1)
• Fire (Beatriz Bonilla Da Costa from Brazil. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1)
• Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Of the United States. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1. Returns to the group after seeing Ice injured on TV. Has dated Ice. )
• Godvia (Dora Leigh of the United Kingdom. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1. )
• Ice (Tora Olafsdotter from Norway. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1. Ice is hurt by the giant’s energy signal, but her injuries appear lighter than thought. Has dated Guy Gardner. )
• Rocket Red (Gavril Ivanovich of Russia. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1. /)
• Vixen (Mari Jiwe McCabe from Zambesi. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1. )

Supporting Cast

• Andre Biggs (Head of UN Intelligence. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1. )
• Emerson Esposito (Assistant of Andre Biggs. Last appeared in Justice League International (vol. 3) #1. )

Villains

• Signalmen (Robotic giants. The Peruvian one appeared last issue. )
• Peraxxus (First appearance. Name given next issue. Awakens from cryo-sleep upon hearing the signal from Planet 3-147.)

Other Characters

• Skeets (Off-screen. Booster’s flying sidekick robot. Contacts him to warn of the other three giants. )

Annotations

Page 1. What is it with the Justice League and headquarters? They just can’t keep a base going for more than a single incarnation of a title. Giffen et al set-up and then broke the embassies, Jurgens moves them into a purpose built compound, that is in turn destroyed in the crossover that launches Gerard Jones’s run and his version of the Satellite. Morrison/Porter then destroy the satellite at the start of their run and set-up the lunar JLA Watchtower which Waid/Hitch heavily remodel. Geoff Johns then destroys the lunar Watchtower in Infinite Crisis, and Brad Meltzer then copies Justice League Unlimited with a satellite Watchtower and a ground-based Hall of Justice. It’s almost amazing that the Hall has survived as long as it has!.

Page 11. Rocket Red: “Russia not run from Napoleon!” Red doesn’t know his history as the one thing that is famous about the Napoleonic invasion of Russia was how the Russians retreated before Napoleon. We have to be fair here, in 1812 Napoleon was at the height of his power and had assembled the largest army ever known. In those days armies often scavenged supplies from whatever communities where unfortunate enough to lie in their path, the Russian Tsar knew this and also knew that he didn’t have a hope in hell of beating Napoleon’s Grand Army on an open battle field. So the Russians retreated before the Grand Army and burnt everything (villages, fields, stores, silos, etc) as they went. The Grand Army was entering a wasteland. In the course of several months its strength fell by almost two-thirds due the affects of hunger and demoralisation. They then had to deal with the equally devastating effects of the Russian winter. Only 1-in-6 of the Grand Army survived to return to France – a testament to the Russian’s ability to strategically retreat.

Page 12. Guy’s bartender is called Beau. This is a reference to Beau Smith who wrote Guy Gardners 1990s Warrior series.

Page 14. Ice: “We had a few dates, Guy. Don’t make more of it than it was.” There is a certain meta-textual element to Ice’s statement. In the old JLI comic they were only ever shown as having a couple of times, mainly disastrous. Their first in Justice League America #28 (July 1989) crashed and burned when Guy took Ice to see a movie at a x-rated cinema owned by an ex-villain. The dated again in Justice League America #45 (Dec 1990), but by then the title had become a little more sit-comedic  and their second date, one where Guy was earnestly trying to win Ice’s affection, was sabotagued by their friends. Guy continued to hold a candle for Tora, even after her death, but it was have been hard to describe their relationship as it was shown on-screen as a serious one.

Page 17: Skeets makes a post-Flashpoint appearance. The reference to a “Booster Cave” is a quip at Batman’s Batcave, but its a place that we’ll apparently see in a few issues time.