I’ve noticed that we’re getting hits for searches on the “August General In Iron” so I’ve posted up a full profile on the character. He’s “China’s Captain America” and is due to become a member of Dan Jurgens’ post-Flashpoint Justice League International. I’ve been intrigued by the character ever since he first appeared in an early issue of 52. Writing this profile was a lot of fun as its involved reading around Chinese history and that isn’t something I was too familiar with beforehand.

I have added a central page for all our static Young Justice content – profiles, timelines, etc. Episode reviews will continue to appear on the front page as normal. I’ll try and get those listed in due course.

New articles up at the moment include:

• A timeline of YJ timestamps.
• YJ profiles: Aqualad, Kid Flash, Robin, and Superboy
• JL profiles: Batman and Superman
• Plus profiles of other characters from the first two episodes.

I plan to keep these updated as we go along and to add new material along with the reviews of new episodes. So I’ll post a profile of a new character instead of a section on them in the usual review. This new site is added under the banner of “The Atlas of the Multiverse” (well it’s actually a reprise of a section from the old site which is no longer online), but at the moment only the Earth-16 (Young Justice) section is live.

A lot of these changes relate to “under-the-hood” mechanics of WordPress. Previously I’ve only been able to have “posts” which appear in the blog stream or “pages” which are static. However, the ability to add custom post types to WordPress has recently appeared. I first experimented with this when I switched the Galleries over to a custom post-type and ditched the former NextGen powered galleries (it was a nice plug-in, but was increasingly too far outside the WordPress core for my liking). I’m rather pleased with the results so I’ve now created a custom post type for Character Profiles.

By default new profiles will be static and won’t be part of the usual front-page stream, but that may change. I also intend to do the same for the DC Animated Universe (Justice League & Justice League Unlimited), but that’ll take time to start.

The galleries have also been refreshed. I’ve dumped NextGen in favour of custom WordPress posts. Seems to be working okay at the moment. Episode screen shot galleries can now be found under the episode page.

One thing I’ve unfortunately had to lose is the links to the old material on geocities.com and captain.custard.org. Both those servers have become defunct during 2010 and are no longer accessible (although you may find geocities mirrors around the web). I’ll try to resurrect as much material as possible, but it’ll take time.

I expect we’ll still be on shakedown for a few weeks yet. Let me know if anything isn’t working for you.

Quotes

Kathy Sutton: I’ve been through this seven time since I first met him. Seven. People think it gets easier. They’re wrong. It always take a bit to collect the pieces. And even when there’s no League, the League does it. Hal helped this time. Last time it was Bruce. As a favor, we asked Magnus to put him together. He didn’t hesitate. He, of all people understands.

Vixen: I feel the birds first. Seagulls and terns. Danger’s coming. Then I feel the tiger. Anger overwhelms me. The place looks empty. Looks aren’t everything. They’re already here. Lion.

Credits

Synopsis “The Tornado’s Path – Chapter One: Life”

The Justice League has been out of action for over a year ever since it disintegrated during the Infinite Crisis. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have even been through their own soul searching and have come together to in the Batcave to plan the League’s reformation.

Sequestered within the Batcave Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman review the dossiers of potential candidates for the next iteration of the Justice League. Arsenal, Green Arrow’s former sidekick, is chosen for the new team. The news is delivered by Green Lantern and Black Canary. Another candidate Black Lightning (Jefferson Pierce) has discovered that somebody is kidnapping minor super villains. It started out with Plastique and the Electrocutioner, then Trident disappeared in an explosion which implicated Plastique. In turn Trident was linked with the disappearance of Doctor Impossible. Vixen, another strong League candidate, is lured to a trap in a Hub City bar by the missing villains.

Batman has been strongly arguing for the inclusion of the Red Tornado (John Smith), but he has yet to reanimate after his latest destruction/rebuild. Kathy Sutton waits next to his android body in Will Magnus’s workshop and is unaware that John’s spirit is watching her. John Smith has become increasingly aware of his own lack of humanity and has agreed to an audacious plan. Deadman transfers John’s spirit into one of the unliving, mindless bodies left by the villain Multiplex. For the first time in his life John Smith awakes as a flesh-and-blood man. Unknown to either John or Kathy the Deadman who helped them was the sorcerer Felix Faust. His manipulations have left the way open for Doctor Impossible to steal the inactive Red Tornado android.

Continuity

• Will Magnus’s lab is in Hoboken, New Jersey.
• The Red Tornado has been destroyed and rebuilt seven times.
• The Metal Men have been redesigned.

Commentary

The Cover Panorama

The two normal covers to issue #1 are either side of a group panorama originally released by DC as piece of promotional art. The original pencilled and coloured version appeared on the Ed Benes art site and in Wizard. The published version differs from the original version by including updated costume designs and a slightly different roster.

The published version

Cover A – Ed Benes, Mariah Benes, and Alex Sinclair (signed); (front row) Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Arsenal, Black Canary, and Red Tornado; (second row) GL (Guy Gardner), Power Girl, Captain Marvel, Supergirl, Huntress, and Captain Atom; (third row, only at the centre) Phantom Stranger, GL (John Stewart), and Cyborg; (back row) somebody’s shoulder, Batwoman, Fire, Nightwing, Firehawk, Ion (Kyle Rayner), Metamorpho, Mister Miracle, Hourman II, the Manhattan Guardian’s shoulder

Cover B – Ed Benes, Mariah Benes, and Alex Sinclair (signature on Cover A); (front row) Black Lightning, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman; (second row) Hawkman, Big Barda, Vixen, Hawkgirl, Flash (Bart Allen), Green Arrow, Zatanna; (back row) Manhattan Guardian, Mister Terrific, Blue Beetle, Doctor Fate, Donna Troy, Martian Manhunter, Firestorm, Doctor Light (Hoshi), Doctor Midnight

The Promotional Version

In the original version Black Lightning and GL John Stewart swap places, Red Tornado and Flash swap places; Guy Gardner who moves from the centre-back replaces Aquaman. Five 52 characters are dropped — Elongated Man, Booster Gold, Animal Man, Adam Strange and the Question are replaced by Green Arrow, Big Barda, Batwoman, Hourman and the Martian Manhunter. Arrow’s move is to allow Arsenal to drop down to the front row, his space at the back is filled by Nightwing. Karate Kid, surely a joke insertion, is dropped and isn’t replaced. Tempest is replaced by Mister Terrific. The two panoramas seem to be entirely separate pieces as there is different inking on the figures common to both.

Michael Turner Variant

Michael Turner had been the cover artist on Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis and that relationship was carried over for the variant covers on Meltzer’s JLA run. The cover is signed by Michael Turner and Peter Stiegerwald and features Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Black Lightning, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Black Canary, Arsenal, Red Tornado, Arsenal, Vixen, and Hawkgirl. Hawkgirl is shown on the Turner group cover, but does not appear in this issue.

Arsenal/Red Arrow

This is Arsenal’s first post-Infinite Crisis appearance. There had been some puzzlement among the fans as to where he would turn up as he was absent from Outsiders and Green Arrow. On the Word Balloon podcast Brad Meltzer noted that he had to clear Arsenal’s use with Outsider’s writer Judd Winick, his former college room-mate, and that in return for letting Arsenal go Winick got Nightwing back in Outsiders.

Opinion/Clippings

At the time this came out I was surprised by the number of Michael Turner variant covers left over in the local comics shop. It wasn’t that they weren’t selling, but there had been a mistake at Diamond resulting in a massive over send of the Turner cover – around here it was the Ed Benes covers that were the rare ones. Both artists have similar styles although Benes isn’t quite as stylised as Turner, which I personally think is a good thing. Benes has recently set up an official English language website and he’s posted up scans of the pencil pages for this issue.

One thing that did strike me whilst reading this issue is that its very easy to tell that its written by the same writer as Identity Crisis. Brad Meltzer uses the same camera angles, monologue boxes, and rapid cutting between scenes that he used there. The only thing that seems to be missing is Rags Morales and Benes comes very close, either by accident or design, to emulating him at times. On his blog Meltzer revealed some of his foreshadowing in “Archer’s Quest” and Identity Crisis, namely the early spotlighting of characters he’d later use for his League roster. He’s also been interviewed by Brain Bendis at Wizard Universe with the following quote getting picked up by those who think that Vixen and Black Lighting are perfect examples of ego characters.

Bendis: How does it feel assembling a team like this, though? It’s kind of a cool feeling and kind of unique?

Meltzer: Oh, it’s definitely the ultimate fanboy dream. If someone came to you and said, “You can pick the team of The Avengers, you can pick the team of The Justice League–or if I went back in time and I told the two of us that that’s what we’d be doing–I would basically die right there, even though we’ve been doing it in our heads since we were 10 years old. But again, the hardest part for me was not wanting to just do what I think is cool, but what actually is bigger than me. I think that there is just a history–even in the JLA, even in The Avengers–where you saw what can only be called “The Ego Character.” It’s the character that’s like, “I’m being put on the team so everyone remembers me.” I hate that character. It’s in just about every run of every Justice League and it’s in just about every run of every Avengers. There’s always one character that’s the ego character. I really wanted to not be that guy–and listen, I’m sure I’ll get called on that whether it’s for Black Lightning or someone else–but to me Black Lightning has total business being in that book.

Tom Bondurant’s Grumpy Old Fan Column at the Newsarama blog also picks up the same quote and does a nice run through of the various vanity and ego characters in the history of the Justice League.

Over at Monitor Duty Hutch raises the issue of Traya’s age. He starts off generally liking the issue,

Brad Meltzer’s story is off to a slow start, typical of the “write for the trade” style. Sure, once it’s all assembled, there will be action in the story, we just don’t get to see it in this installment. That said, it makes for an intense read with some touching moments and solid drama, and I’m especially pleased to see the attention paid to some second-string characters I’ve loved for years, namely The Metal Men and Red Tornado.

But he then goes into an analysis of what happens to neglected characters. For example, the last appearance of Traya that I can remember was in Young Justice where she’s shown as attending the same private school as Wonder Girl. Admittedly she was also shown as a kid genius who had been boosted up to the older classes, but she can’t have been much older than ten or twelve (I don’t buy the decompressed twenty year-plus timeline idea as it would put Superman and Batman in their late 40s). Yet, here she’s portrayed as not being much older than she was in her first appearance (issue #152, March 1978, of the old series) where she can’t have been much older than four years old. And is it my imagination or has Traya’s skin colour lightened since she was first introduced?

Brian Cronin’s review at Comics Should Be Good mirrored many reviews I’ve read. He channels the blogosphere by noting that:

The comic seemed ready to be a fun book, and it had quite a few nice character bits, but ultimately, for the debut issue of a major title, with thirty-eight pages to work with, the book had far too much sitting around and talking, and not nearly enough action.

Personally I didn’t mind the lack of action, but it is fairly obvious that this relaunch is going to be a different beast from the “widescreen” instant action of the previous relaunch. (A Todd Nauck-esque Doctor Impossible? I didn’t spot it to start with, but now that it’s been mentioned.)

Other People Opinions

Character Appearances

Feature Characters

The Justice League of America

• Arsenal (Roy Harper; formerly Green Arrow’s sidekick, the first Speedy)
• Batman (Bruce Wayne, appeared last issue)
• Black Lightning (Jefferson Pierce)
• Green Lantern Hal Jordan
• Red Tornado (John Smith; last appeared in 52 #52)
• Superman (appeared last issue)
• Vixen (Mari Jiwe McCabe; fashion model turned superhero)
• Wonder Woman (Diana Prince, appeared last issue)

Guest Stars

• Green Arrow (Oliver Queen)

Villains

• Felix Faust (An old magician foe of the League masquerading as Boston Brand, the Deadman)
• Mister Impossible (first appearance)
• Multiplex (that’s one of his deceased bodies the Tornado is inhabiting)
• Signalman (Phil Cobb; one of Batman’s lesser foes)

Supporting Cast

• Kathy Sutton (John Smith’s human partner; Traya’s adoptive mother; last appeared in Young Justice)
• Traya (a war orphan adopted by John Smith and Kathy Sutton; last appeared in Young Justice)

Guest Appearances

• Gold (one of the Metal Men)
• Platinium (“Tina”, one of the Metal Men)
• Will Magnus (Scientific genius; creator of the Metal Men; last appeared in 52)

Cameos Appearances

• Lian Harper (Roy Harper’s infant daughter; shown in a photograph)
• JLA Candidates – Atom II, Flash, Hawkman, Mister Terrific, Power Girl, and Supergirl

Annotations

Page 1: “My father tried to save the world,” is a reference to Jor-El and the destruction of the planet Krypton.

Page 2-3: Captain Marvel is a fifteen-year-old child who is transformed into the Worlds Mightiest Mortal by saying the name of his patron, the wizard Shazam. He is missing because after the wizard was killed in the run up to Infinite Crisis, Billy Baston was promoted to caretaker of the Rock of Eternity and chief sentinel of magic in the reordered DC Universe. His replacement as Captain Marvel, Freddy Freeman, has to yet earn access to the full scope of Captain Marvel’s powers and must under go the  Trials of Shazam to prove himself.

Page 4: Kathy Sutton and the Red Tornado. The Tornado is a powerful alien spirit that inhabits a robotic body. The body was originally was built by T.O. Morrow as a Trojan Horse intended to gain the trust of and then destroy the JSA and JLA. However, he rebelled and became a member of first the JSA and then the JLA. One downside of his perceived synthetic nature was that he had an almost suicidal urge to sacrifice himself. There was a flashback in issue #0 showing the reaction of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to one of the Tornado’s suicides. Invariably the pieces are gathered together and reassembled. He was destroyed and rebuilt by in JLA #115-119 (Aug — Late Nov 2005) by Batman in a story that bridged the events of Meltzer’s Identity Crisis and the impending Infinite Crisis.

The post-Infinite Crisis fate of the Tornado was a major subplot in the weekly 52 series. He had been in space with Donna Troy’s team when they were forced to flee a spatial rift created by Alexander Luthor. The Tornado’s unique vibrational tuned technology recorded a map of the new Multiverse as it formed, but his body was shattered and scattered. His voice box became embedded in Mal Duncan and his last words that time were “fifty-two” (the number of new universes). It was Morrow who discovered the Tornado’s body in an Australian junkyard art-exhibit.

Morrow recovered the Tornado’s remains, but the head – and the map of the Multiverse – was stolen by Booster Gold and Rip Hunter. This dialogue tells us that sometime after 52 finished Hal Jordan recovered the rest of the Tornado’s body from Morrow’s lab (which shows up later in this arc) and the head from Rip Hunter. It was shown in 52 that Will Magnus was Morrow’s student so it makes sense that he’d be the one to recommission the Tornado and check for any booby traps.

Page 5: Will Magnus and the Metal Men: Magnus is the foremost authority on robotics in the DC Universe – well the foremost authority who isn’t a super villain at least. He designed a team of robots called the Metal Men who each possess the strengths and weakness of a particular metal. They share the Red Tornado’s sacrificial drive, but they lack his subtle humanity. The female android pictured here is Platinum, she’s in love with her creator, a “flaw” in her programming that he’s tried hard to eliminate. In 52 Magnus is shown regularly visiting Morrow in prison and Morrow has described Magnus as one of his students.

Page 6: The five retro-panels are a direct cut-and-paste from page 14 of Justice League of America (vol. 1) #105 (May 1973), the first appearance of Kathy Sutton. That sequence was originally written by Len Wein and illustrated by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano.

Page 9: Traya is a young war orphan found and adopted by Red Tornado in Justice League of America (vol. 1) #152 (March 1978).

Page 11: The Deadman, Boston Brand, a circus aerialist who came back as a ghost to hunt those responsible for his death. The interesting part here is that his appearance proves that the Tornado actually has a soul. A complex part of the Tornado’s back story is that he is actually an elemental force of nature – an air elemental – housed in an android body. Many people forget the air elemental (his spirit) and assume that he is just an android. It’s the android that turns the disembodied entity into an real person.

Page 12:

• Hal Jordan, Green Lantern. He and Batman haven’t seen eye to eye for a while after Hal became the villain Parallax, then redeemed himself as the Spectre before being resurrected in Green Lantern: Rebirth.
• Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, Superman’s cousin. Wonder Woman and Batman have both taken a close interest in her career and she even stayed on Themyscira before she went public.
• The Flash, Bart Allen. There have been four Flashes — Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, and Bart Allen (Barry’s grandson). At the time this was out Barry was dead and Wally’s location hadn’t been revealed. In their absence an artificially aged Bart took over the reigns of the Flash.
• Power Girl. A survivor of an extinct parallel universe; a more mature alternative version of Supergirl. She’s been a Leaguer before, but more recently has been working with the Justice Society.

Page 13-14: Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and Arsenal (Roy Harper). During the 1970s Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams collaborated on the celebrated “Hard Travelling Heroes” team-up between Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) and Green Lantern. Dinah, Black Canary (Dinah Lance), was Green Arrow’s then girlfriend, and Harper, then called Speedy, was his sidekick. The quip about the truck is a reference to that story. Despite being rather dysfunctional they’ve become a family with Roy seeing Oliver as his father and Hal as his uncle. Both Jordan and Queen have died and come back to life. Lian Harper is Roy’s daughter, her mother is the super villain Cheshire.

This practise of breaking down the story into each chapter headed by the characters’ logos is a signature of the original Justice League book.

Page 15-17: Jefferson Pierce, Black Lightning. He’s  been a teacher in Metropolis and a member of Batman’s Outsiders. He memorably turned down League membership in Justice League of America (vol. 1) #173 (Dec 1979) and was ripped off as Black Vulcan for the Super Friends, but that’s another story. He was Secretary of Education in President Luthor’s cabinet and has appeared in recent issues of Green Arrow’s series.

Tatsu, Katana, was another member of the Outsiders. Katana and Black Lightning are shown talking together in Identity Crisis #1 (Aug 2004) when they got the news of Sue Dibny’s murder. On his blog Brad Meltzer commented that he’d had his eye on Black Lightning as a potential member of his Justice League for sometime and that the Identity Crisis appearance was part of the set up.

Most of these villains are obscure, heck most of them aren’t even in the Official DC Encyclopaedia.

• Plastique was a French-Canadian terrorist. She had reformed and was engaged to marry Captain Atom.
• The Silver Ghost was a foe of the old Freedom Fighters.

It appears that super villains are disappearing in a chain and are being implicated in the next disappearance in the chain. This is the first mention of the new character Doctor Impossible.

Page 18: Multiplex was an enemy of Firestorm who, as it says here, was able to make duplicates of himself. When he died it appears that his duplicate bodies died as well.

Page 20:

• Mister Terrific, Michael Holt. Chairman of the Justice Society.
• The Atom, Ray Palmer. Missing since the end of Identity Crisis when it was revealed that his wife was the murderer. It’s been implied in All-New Atom that he’s been leaving clues to guide Ray Choi into becoming the new Atom. It will later be revealed that Palmer is living on another world in the Multiverse.
• Vixen, Mari Jiwe McCabe. See below.
• Hawkman, Carter Hall. A member of the original Justice Society and the classic Justice League. He was with the same space task force as the Red Tornado, but didn’t return with the rest in 52. Calling the strongman of the team “the tank” is an old bit of jargon from superhero role-playing games.

Page 21-22: The Vixen, Mari Jiwe McCabe, is an African supermodel turned superhero. I’m beginning to wonder if she was based on the African supermodel Iman or one of the other African models who were rising to fame in the US during the 1970s and early 1980s. Her superpower comes from an amulet, the Tantu Totem, which allows her to duplicate specific animal abilities.

The quote is from Anais Nin, a French diarist and noted author of female erotica. It draws Vixen to Hub City, the Question’s old stomping groups, but you’re unlikely to see him as at the time of publication he’s appearing in 52 and there is a moratorium on using the core characters of that series in other books until it finishes. Note added in update: when I first wrote these annotations I noted about the Question that “we don’t even know if he’ll survive the [52] series.” We now know that Vic Sage, the original Question, died in 52 and was succeeded by Rene Montoya. The twist here is that Vixen thinks she’s being summoned on a date by the male Sage, when the current female Question is actually a lesbian. Of course neither of them sent the message as it’s a set up for a trap.

Page 23-26: This would be the first time we’ve seen Deadman performing magic. “Zwei seelen wohnen in meiner brust” is German and means “Two souls live in my chest”. It’s a quote from Faust. Which isn’t surprising considering it is later revealed that it is being said by Felix Faust, an old League villain inspired by the literary Faust, masquerading as Deadman.

Page 27-28: The part that puzzled me about this sequence is that are Lantern and Canary assembling their own League independent of the Trinity or are they acting under orders from them?

Page 29: “Mrs. Huckle” is Ma Huckle, the original Red Tornado vigilante from the 1940s. She’s now the caretaker of the Justice Society’s Headquarters.

Page 30: “Uncle Snapper” is Snapper Carr the League’s old teenage mascot.

Page 31: Beheading Metal Men shouldn’t work. Other depictions show then as essentially pure statues of metal animated by a tiny device called a responsometer. Showing them as having more mechanistic components is a revision. They’re shapeshifters – cutting off their head shouldn’t affect their ability to operate as they’d just form a new one. If you inspect the unfinished pencilled pages for this issue on Ed Benes’s website you can see that he started out drawing the Metal Men in their original designs, but by the time he comes to pencil this sequence the design has been updated to this current form.

Page 32: The comments about the Legion flight ring replies on Superman meeting the Legion of Super-Heroes. They are a team of superheroes from a thousand years into the future, but permutations in continuity means that they’ve taken quite a battering over the years with at least three major versions existing. A later story in this title by Brad Meltzer and Geoff Johns re-establishes the original Legion and Superman’s membership of it. Batman’s mention of the ring is the first hint at the Legion’s comeback.

Page 34: Doctor Impossible, a new character, this is his first appearance. The set-up and costume states that he is Mister Miracle’s brother from Apokolips, the assumption would be that he’s another of Granny Goodness’s students who escaped. His technology is reversed from Mister Miracles, i.e his has a Father Box that goes “Pok pok” rather than a Mother Box that goes “Ping ping” and he’s got a “Hush Tube” rather than a deafening Boom Tube.

Page 35: Note Red Tornado’s JLA membership certificate on the wall behind Kathy.

Quotes

Superman (about Batman): In all our time working together it was the first time I saw Bruce scared. It wasn’t the aliens. Or the diamonds. Or even the Mach 6. It was just the simple and unavoidable realization that there were bigger things on the planet than him. And that’s what terrified Batman. [...] But as he’s done every day since he was eight years old, instead of being ruined by his darkest and most ruthless fears he embraces them.

Wonder Woman: So we’re on again? Once every year?Batman: That’s fine, Diana. But I think we can do better than that. And maybe even invite a few friends along in the process.Wonder Woman: Did you just say friends?Batman: I meant teammates.Superman: We know what you meant, Bruce.

Issue Credits

Writer

Brad Meltzer

Artist

Eric Wight (pgs 1-4), Dick Giordano (pg 5), Tony Harris (pg 6), George Perez (pg 7), J.H. Williams III (pg 8.), Gene Ha (pg 10), Rags Morales (pg 11), Ethan Van Sciver (pg 12), Kevin Maguire (pg 13), Adam Kubert (pg 14), Jim Lee (pg 16)

Penciller

Luke McDonnell (pg 9), Dan Jurgens (pg 15), Howard Porter (pg 17), Andy Kubert (pg 18), Phil Jimenez (pg 19), Ed Benes (pgs 20-24)

Inker

Paul Neary (pg 9), Kevin Nowlan (pg 15), Dexter Vines (pg 17), Jesse Delperdang (pg 18), Andy Lanning (pg 19), Sandra Hope (pg 20-24)

Colourist

Alex Sinclair

Letterer

Rob Leigh

Cover Artist

Michael Turner, Peter Steigerwald

Variant Cover Penciller

J. Scott Campbell

Variant Cover Inker

Sandra Hope

Variant Cover Colourist

Edgar Delgado

Assistant Editor

Jeanine Schaefer

Editor

Eddie Berganza

Synopsis “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”

The trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, like other groups of Leaguers, have always met independently of the monthly Justice League meetings. Since their first loss (the Red Tornado against the Nebula Man) they’ve met annually to discuss the state of the Justice League.

Together they’ve seen the highs and lows of each other’s lives, including the wedding of Wonder Girl, the formation of the Detroit League, Batman’s excitement at recruiting the second Robin and punching out Guy Gardner, the pain of Superman’s death and Batman’s betrayal by the other Leaguers and the lengths it eventually drove him to. A year ago Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime’s machinations led to a fracturing of the Justice League and a loss of trust between the its members. Now after a year-long sabbatical the trinity come together to begin its reformation.

The yearly meetings continue into the near future. Together they’ll see Hal Jordan’s wedding, Luthor’s vengeance, the death of Jonathan Kent, the marriage of Diana, the discovery of a second Earth, another loss of trust between them, and the ultimate death of the Batman.

Continuity

• Wonder Woman. Batman, and Superman were all founders of the Justice League.
• Superman’s wedding gift to Donna Troy was making sure nobody threatened her wedding.
• Batman was excited about training Jason Todd.

Commentary

Variants

A variant of this issue was given away as part of DC’s package for Free Comic Book Day 2007.

Press Clippings

At the time I quoted Wizard‘s coverage of this issue… According to Wizard #175 the new series of Justice League will be getting an issue #0 issue.

“A year has gone by with these three not together,” said the writer [Brad Meltzer] of the jump after Infinite Crisis. “This is where we get to see them [Superman, Batman, and Woner Woman] re-emerge. This issue allows us to center the universe of the JLA before moving on to the first true adventure of the new team in issue #1.”

The art will be supplied by League alumni Dick Giordano, Luke McDonnell, Kevin Maguire, Dan Jurgens and Howard Porter as well as Phil Jiminez, Adam & Andy Kubert and Rags Morales.

“You have each artist doing their League,” enthused Meltzer. “When you do a jam issue, usually it’s just a bunch of good artists, but this one actually matters and has a reason behind it.”

Meltzer also revealed that the covers for the new series will be supplied by Michael Turner.

Additionally, on the flash forwards Brad Meltzer told Wizard that:

The true reason is because some of those moments are happening. Obviously I can’t say which ones in the future are happening, but there are ones that are absolutely, 100-percent happening. Some of those I stumbled upon and said, “This is what I want to do,” and Dan (DiDio) told me we were actually doing that. And one of them I said, “Can we do this?! And he said, “That’s a good idea, we should do that.”

The only artist DC wouldn’t let Brad Meltzer approach about drawing a sequence was Simone Bianchi.

League History and the Big Three

The first flashback is to immediately after the events in Justice League of America (vol. 1) #9 (Feb 1962), just after the foundation of the Justice League – February 1959 in the pre-Crisis timeline. As originally told Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), the Martian Manhunter (J’onn J’onzz), Aquaman (Arthur Curry), and Wonder Woman (Diana) individually fought alien invaders from the planet Appellax. They then came together to fight a sixth invader (the famous wood alien) and tracked a seventh down just in time to see it defeated by Batman (Bruce Wayne) and Superman (Clark Kent).

Over the years there have been a few adventures retroactively added prior to that invasion attempt, notably the White Martian invasion revealed in Justice League of America (vol. 1) #114 (Dec 1974) and the disappearance of Triumph in Justice League America #92 (Sept 1994), but the Appellaxian Invasion is still regarded as the definitive origin of the Justice League. However, Superman and Batman’s role in the formation of the League was not that great. Their original involvement with the League was played down as their respective editors feared that they would be overexposed. Even in the comic book origin their involvement is separate from the other five heroes – they don’t fight the wood alien.

We now jump forward twenty-five years to immediately after the Crisis on Infinite Earths and DC Comics’s decision to reboot the origins of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. It was retroactively decided that these three had never been members of the Justice League. Superman and Batman were removed because they weren’t considered team players and Wonder Woman because she didn’t appear until long after the League debued. She was replaced by Black Canary for a retelling of the origin in Secret Origins #32 (Nov 1988) (by Keith Giffen and Peter David) and for JLA: Year One #1-12 (Jan — Dec 1998) (by Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn) a twelve-part mini-series focusing of the League’s early days.

While the replacement of one Diana with another Dinah worked well within the fictional history it didn’t stop the feeling that many people had that the big three should really have been part of the early League. Over the years the timing of Wonder Woman’s debut has slowly slipped backwards in time and flashbacks show her participating in events she wouldn’t have otherwise been around for. Superman and Batman were eventually reintroduced to the League in John Ostrander’s JLA: Incarnations #2 (Aug 2001). The weight of history was slowly reintegrating the trinity back into League history. This was finally acknowledged in Infinite Crisis #7 (June 2006) when the realignment of the New Earth allowed DC to state (as shown below) that the big-three had been part of the League all along.

The flashbacks in this issue are really about re-establishing the big three’s place within the Justice League and adding Wonder Woman to the popular Superman/Batman dynamic – the rekindling of the World’s Finest. However, the split between Superman/Batman and the other Leaguers goes all the way back to the DCs Golden Age. In the 1940s Batman and Superman were run by one half of the company while the other heroes were predominately run by the other half of the company (at one point they were actually two separate companies). That’s why the World Finest were only ever bit part players in the Justice Society, Earth-Two Superman’s involvement with the Justice Society is as much a retcon as Black Canary’s addition to the early Justice League.

It’s interesting to compare the last JLA series by Mark Waid, Grank Morrison, and Joe Kelly with the original series by Gardner Fox and his successors. The modern series really focused on the big-three, particularly with Superman as the permanent chairman and Batman as the Morrison-esque Bat-god. While in the classic series the big-three were just normal members who served their month as the rotating chairman. Of the three it’s Batman who has the biggest League involvement as it’s Bruce Wayne who bankrolls the team and he even quits to form the Outsiders when he disagrees with the direction the League is taking. By comparison Superman’s involvement with the League is almost passive.

Opinion

The pressure on Brad Meltzer to deliver with this new series was immense. As Wonderfly put it on the Toonzone Forums:

Two years ago, Brad Meltzer tore the Justice League apart in the now infamous Identity Crisis miniseries, and now he begins the process of putting them back together.

He set the bar so high in Identity Crisis that I was afraid he’d have been hard pressed to match it. However, match it he does. This zero issue is arguably the best of his run (baring the Eisner winning Vixen/Red Arrow issue). In Comic Bulletin’s review jam Kevin Brown described the issue succinctly,

Meltzer has written a near masterpiece here. He’s done what damn few writers are capable of doing: keeping all of the continuity relevant and not trying to over explain it. It’s essentially one page of “1960,” one page “sometime in the future,” then one page “1973,” and so on and so forth. At first it’s a little disconcerting, but that has more to do with the wide disparity of artwork presented in this issue. Though once you’re able to fully see what Meltzer is doing, you’re totally sucked into the story.

It’s a marvellous trick using the style of each area. Many liked it, but there were dissenting voices like Adam White who argued that

In each era represented Meltzer portrays each of the Big Three with their various personalities from the histories of their individual books; while he does so accurately, all this does is serve to confuse any new readers and frustrate existing ones because the story lacks any real point.

I would agree that its hard to judge this zeroth issue as it’s a bridging piece between the dissolution of the League during the Infinite Crisis and its reformation next issue. In this context the alternating flash-backs and flash-forwards work well and the different artists are a good match to their eras. I particularly like George Perez’s Wedding of Donna Troy and Kevin Maguire’s One Punch. In general the flashbacks work better than the flash forwards, but the second Earth has certainly got by curiosity peaked.

While the story is essentially about the trio, the real focus of the flash-backs and the flash-forwards are Batman and his relationship with the League. Meltzer gives an interesting spin to the evolution of Batman’s character. His excitement and commitment to the League really makes the Identity Crisis mind wipe much more hurtful. The same sense comes through with his excitement about the new Robin. This is a side of Batman that we rarely see, but the fragility of his feelings sets up his reactions to the deaths of Jason Todd and Superman. Handling loss so badly starts to explain why he pushed everybody away from himself and slowly succumbs to the paranoia that plagued his later pre-Infinite Crisis appearances.

The Verdict

Characters

I’ve been a bit fast and loose with the way I list characters. Murray Ward’s original JLA Index series listed seven categories:

The seven character categories are: Feature Characters, characters to whom the title of the features refers; Guest Stars, characters from other comics who have a major role in the story; Supporting Characters, characters who appear frequently in stories with the feature characters; Villains, the antagonists of the feature characters, Guest Appearances, characters from other comics who have a minor role in the story; Other Characters, characters who do not fall into any one of the five previous categories; and Cameo Appearances, characters who do not actually appear in a story but whose images are seen, for example, in photographs, flashbacks, or reminiscences.

I’ve always tried to follow the spirit of that, but the lines behind what is a Guest Star, Guest Appearance and Other Characters have become blurred. This quote appears above as a reminder to me of what I should be working towards.

Feature Characters

Justice League of America (technically still disbanded)

• Batman (Bruce Wayne)
• Superman (Clark Kent)
• Wonder Woman (Diana Prince)

Villains

• Lex Luthor (splash page flash forward)

Guest Appearances

• Donna Troy (flash back to her wedding to Terry Long)
• Green Arrow I (Oliver Queen, flash forward to Hal Jordan’s wedding)
• Green Lantern Hal Jordan (single-panel flashback & flash forward to his wedding)
• Robin I (Dick Grayson, flashback to Donna Troy’s wedding)
• Robin II (Jason Todd, behind-the-scenes, Batman talks about recruiting him)

Other Characters

• Martha Kent (Superman’s adopted mother, flash forward to just after Jonathan Kent’s funeral)
• Terry Long (flashback at his wedding to Donna Troy)

Cameos

• Aquaman, Atom I, Atom II, Black Canary, Captain Marvel I, Cyborg, Doctor Mid-Nite I, Elongated Man, Firestorm I, Flash I, Flash II, Green Lantern (Alan Scott) Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Hawkman I, Hawkgirl I, Hourman I, Martian Manhunter, Power Girl, Red Tornado II, Sandman I, Spectre I, Starfire, Supergirl II, Vibe, Vixen, Zatanna (single-panel photos or flash forward/back cameos, where not otherwise mentioned above)

Annotations

Pages 1-4: Art: Eric Wight. Flash back 1. Wight began his career in animation, but was enlisted by O.C. writer Allan Heinberg to produce art for a subplot that involved one of the OC’s characters becoming a comic book artist. It was also Heinberg who suggested Wight’s name to Brad Metlzer when he heard he was looking for somebody to duplicate Mike Sekowsky’s style for the opening segment of this issue. It’s implied that the old World Finest adventures are still canon – Superman and Batman know each other’s secret identities and Robin is mentioned despite Batman not recruiting Robin until later in the fictional timeline. These could all be retcons, but it’s just as likely that the flashbacks are being told using the canon that was established when they were set.

Page 5: Art: Dick Giordano. Flash back 2. Dick Giordano was JLA inker during the early 1970s, his professional line lifted many pencillers work and he was the inker of choice for many League covers. His first issue was Justice League of America (vol. 1) #102 (Oct 1972) where the Red Tornado “died” and the issue just before this flashback. It was the League’s biggest story to date and spun out of the League’s one hundredth issue. The Seven Soldiers of Victory were DC’s second superhero team after the Justice Society. In Justice League of America (vol. 1) #100 (Aug 1972) it was revealed that they’d been lost throughout time during an encounter with the Nebula Man. A joint team of the JSA/JLA combined their might to find the missing heroes and to finally defeat the Nebula Man, but the Red Tornado was killed in the conflict. At the time the he was a member of the Justice Society and was not yet a member of the Justice League. The Seven Soldiers team was revived as a connected wave of mini-series by Grant Morrison.

A side effect of adding Wonder Woman back to the start of the League is that it shifts her modern origin back by about five years on the fictional DC timeline. We don’t know what Wonder Woman’s adventures were during that time, but her appearance in the second flashback would imply that some of her pre-Crisis adventures – notably her depowerment as Diana Prince – have been reintroduced to the canon.

Page 6: Art: Tony Harris. Flash forward 1. The Wedding of Hal Jordan. We are not given that many clues about the timing of the flash forwards. The implication is that Hal’s the last one to get married of the old Leaguers. Oliver Queen’s the best man. The bride is blond, but her face isn’t shown. Her skin colour would rule out the Green Lantern Arisia. The caption seems to imply that Clark is left out of the trio for some reason, could a deeper connection been Bruce and Diana be in the works. Joe Kelly and the JLU cartoon played with the idea of attraction between Batman and Wonder Woman, but nothing ever came of it.

Diana mentions Donna’s weddings plural (see below). She also mentions “What Dick did with Harvey” which could mean that Dick Grayson has reformed Two-Face – an allusion to Dick’s recent time with Batman. It matches a similar quip by the Batman of the 851st century during the DC One Million cross-over who says that Batman II reformed Two-Face II.

Page 7: Art: George Perez. Flash back 3. The marriage of Donna Troy (the first Wonder Girl, Diana’s sister) to Terry Long from Tales of the Teen Titans #50 (Feb 1985) recreated here by George Perez, its original artist. This is Donna’s first marriage, her “second marriage” was to the Titan of Myth Coeus. Diana’s mention of Dick not yet surpassing Bruce is a back reference to the first flashback where its implied that Dick has actually surpassed Bruce by managing to reform Harvey Dent, something Bruce recently failed to do at the start of the One Year Later continuity.

Page 8: Art: J.H.Williams. Flash forward 2. Luthor has the kryptonite signet ring. Luthor has two “sons” that we know about. The first was Jerry White, the result of an affair with Perry White’s wife, the second is Connor Kent, the recently deceased Superboy. Superboy was a clone of Superman, but Cadmus scientists couldn’t completely decipher Kryptonian DNA so they used human DNA as a template – Luthor made sure it was his DNA that was used as a template meaning that Superman and Luthor are both Connor’s “fathers.” This confrontation would presumably be Luthor’s revenge against the League for the death of Connor during Infinite Crisis #6 (May 2006) in an alternative future where Conner didn’t come back to life (Final Crisis Legion of Three-Worlds).

Page 9: Art: Luke McDonnell and Paul Neary. Flash back 4. McDonnell was the last penciller of the original Justice League of America series during the end of the Detriot era League and Neary was the inker during Brian Hitch’s short time as JLA penciller. The Detroit League was created by Gerry Conway as an early 1980s relaunch of the Justice League. The satellite was destroyed by an alien invasion (that’s why the trio are meeting in Challengers Mountain) that the League barely defeated because members weren’t able to respond. Rotating chairman Aquaman disbanded the League and reformed it with a handful of old Leaguers and four new heroes – Vibe, Vixen, Gypsy, and Steel II (not John Henry).

At the time of the invasion Superman and Wonder Woman were visiting Earth-Two and confronted Aquaman about the change in Justice League of America (vol. 1) #239 (June 1985). This flash back presumably happens shortly after than confrontation. Batman is referring to Vixen when he mentions “only one of them has has training” as she’s the only one of the four to have appeared before joining the JLA. Diana suggests that Batman helps train them. He turns her down here, but changes his mind in Justice League of America (vol. 1) #250 (May 1986).

Page 10: Art: Gene Ha. Flash forward 3. Shortly after the funeral of Jonathan Kent. This scene is based on a mix of old school Superboy and Superman the Movie. In the original comics both Jonathan and Martha Kent were dead. John Byrne’s reboot kept them both alive whilst the movie series only kept Martha Kent alive. The death of Jonathan Kent would move the comics continuity even closer to the movies. The tunnel was built by Clark as Superboy so that he could exit the Kent Farm without being spotted. This is the first sign that it exists post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Jonathan Kent character was still alive when this appeared in 2006, but he died of a heart attack in Action Comics #870 (December 2008).

Page 11: Art: Rags Morales. Flash back 5. The Batcave just after the first appearance of the second Robin, Jason Todd. Diana mentions Donna’s reaction if she ever took on another apprentice, but she’d do that herself years later with Cassie Sandsmark. This scene seems to back up the idea that we’re seeing scenes set in the old continuity as that’s Jason Todd’s pre-Crisis circus costume in the glass case. Pre-Crisis Todd’s origin was a duplicate of Dick Grayson’s circus origin (Detective Comics #526 (May 1983)), post-Crisis he was a just street punk. Todd was killed by the Joker and Batman kept his Robin costume in that case as a memorial. Todd was returned to life as a side effect of Superboy-Prime’s actions in Infinite Crisis.

Page 12: Art: Ethan Van Sciver. Flash forward 4. Paradise Island shortly before the marriage of Diana to an unnamed male. Clark and Bruce are both married. Note the Batman Begins style ribs on Batman’s cape. Diana loosing her immortality by marrying a man is a very pre-Crisis idea, not sure if this has been established post-Crisis. If this really was following pre-Crisis continuity then the only man she could be marrying is Steve Trevor.

Page 13: Art: Kevin Maguire. Flash back 6. The punch that they’re discussing occurred in Justice League #5 (Sept 1987). Batman was leader of the League and Green Lantern Guy Gardner had been constantly undermining his authority. Gardner finally tried to pick a fight, but Batman knocking him unconscious with a single punch.

Maguire was the regular artist on Justice League and illustrates this flashback. If Batman’s pose in the last panel is familiar it’s because its identical to Gardner’s stance moments before Batman punches him. This scene would have had to happen a little while after the real incident as the JLI Embassy(s) weren’t established until Justice League International (vol. 1) #8 (Dec 1987).

Page 14: Art: Adam Kubert. Flash forward 5. Probably the toughest flash forward to decipher. Its a new incarnation of the JLA Satellite, Superman’s alone as Batman and Wonder Woman haven’t turned up. Something has driven a wedge between them again, possibly something Batman’s done. I think the main point of this scene is to tease us with a “New Satellite”. I’m not sure if we’re meant to read something from the Trophy Room, but the items on display are (left-to-right) Aztek’s helmet, a globe (origin unknown), Green Arrow’s arrows, a box of something (wooden splinters from the wood alien?), a Starro fish, an Amazo, Despero’s infamous chessboard, and that looks like Bizarro’s head.

Page 15: Art: Dan Jurgens & Kevin Nowlan. Flash back 7. The Death of Superman. Dan Jurgens was writing and drawing JLA at the time, he brought Superman back into the League after a long absence and tied the title into “The Death of Superman” (which he was also co-writing and drawing). In terms of League history the Death of Superman is important because, in my opinion, it started the slow rot that finally resulted in the franchise being culled and relaunched with the third series. Superman’s tattered cape on the pole is Jimmy Olsen’s iconic photograph and the cover of Superman (vol. 2) #75 (Jan 1993).

Page 16: Art: Jim Lee. Flash forward 6. The discovery of a new Earth. As they note this isn’t the first time they’ve encountered a parallel Earth. The note about the Flash finding the new world is a nod to the first appearance of Earth-Two in The Flash (vol. 1) #123 (Sept 1961). This seems a very generic flash forward, but the League did have their own crossover with the Tangent Universe a couple of years later. It was set-up in issue #16 (Feb 2008) and then followed up by Tangent: Superman’s Reign (2008).

Page 17: Art: Howard Porter & Dexter Vines. Flash back 8. This is a flash back to just after the epilogue to “Tower of Babel” (JLA #43-46 (July — Oct 2000)). Howard Porter was the main artist during Grant Morrison’s JLA and this story (Mark Waid’s first) was the last one he illustrated. Wonder Woman mentions the death of Jason, the second Robin who Batman was so excited about in Flash Back 5. It was his death that prompted the change in Batman’s characterisation to the increasing brutal loner who pushed all of his friends away. His increasing paranoia made him keep secret files on his JLA team-mates. “Tower of Babel” was about those files falling into the wrong hands and the League’s reaction to they’re existence. It many ways it was the first shot in the disintegration of the trio’s relationship that eventually led to the events of Infinite Crisis.

Page 18: Art: Andy Kubert and Jesse Delperdang. Flash forward 7. This flash forward is an homage to Frank Millar’s The Dark Knight Returns setting – a bleak and dark future where Batman went under ground and was forced to fight Superman. Clark mentions he’s glad Diana came back which could be a reference to the split implied in Flash forward 5. Crime Alley, the setting for their meeting, is where Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered.

Page 19: Art Phil Jimenez and Andy Lanning. Flash back 9. The first panel is from Infinite Crisis #1 (Dec 2005) when the trio met in the wreckage of the JLA Watchtower. Panels 3 and 5 are from the end of Infinite Crisis #7 (June 2006) when they decided to each take some time off, Clark had lost his powers, Bruce needed to reconnect with Dick and Tim, Diana went elsewhere, and then meet up again one year later. That skipped year is played out in 52. Jimenez and Lanning illustrated Infinite Crisis. The other two panels are a flash back to the Batcave meeting at the start of this issue.

Pages 20-24: Art Ed Benes and Sandra Hope. The Present. The meeting one year after the last flash back so this is the first meeting after the three “One Year Later” stories by James Robinson in Detective Comics/Batman, Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns in Action Comics/Superman (vol. 3), and Allen Heinberg in Wonder Woman (vol. 3). The photographs scattered on the table are Supergirl, Captain Marvel, Green Arrow, Vixen, Hawkman, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Flash, Aquaman, Power Girl, Zatanna, Cyborg. I think the one on the edge next to Zatanna may be the Huntress.

Last week I had a nice e-mail from RobReally asking how I produce the Featured Post banner on this site. It’s actually quite simple to do if you know a little PHP and a little bit about WordPress.

There are two bits of information that made this work:

1. First you have to identify your featured posts. I do this by having a post category called “Features.”
2. Secondly you need a thumbnail or image to go with each post. Newer versions of wordpress have a post thumbnail capability built in, but I didn’t want to use that as I wanted to pull in thumbnails from outside the WordPress ecosystem. I added a Custom Field called “Thumbnail” to each post in the “Features” category. This Custom Field just contains the URL of the image I want to use as a thumbnail.

The key behind it is the WordPress Loop – this is the bit of code that generates the list of posts on your blog. The loop is very flexible and can do everything we need to for this banner. For our purposes we only need a very minimal loop that I’ve added at the end by the header.php file in my theme’s folder.

<?php if ( is_front_page() ) { ?>
<div class="full-bar">
  <h2>Featured Posts</h2>
  <div class="stories-wide">
    <?php
    $wpQuery = new WP_Query('category_name=features&showposts=6');
    while ($wpQuery->have_posts()) : $wpQuery->the_post();
    ?>

      <div class="sideStory">
      <img class="sideStoryImage" src="<?php
      echo get_post_meta($post->ID,"Thumbnail",true) ;?>" />
      <div class="sideStoryText">
        <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"
        title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
          <?php the_title(); ?>
        </a>
      </div>
      </div>

    <?php endwhile; ?>
  </div>
</div>
<?php } ?>

The bracket between lines 1 and 24 just makes sure that this appears on the front page of the site only. Line 6 is the real power. This creates a new blog loop just consisting of the 6 latest posts from the features category. Then in lines 7-21 we loop over those posts displaying a thumbnail (lines 11 and 12) and a link to the post (lines 14 to 17).

The rest of the formatting is achieved with CSS. The details of this will depend on your WordPress theme. The CSS I use is the following:

div.full-bar {
 border-radius: 0.7em; -moz-border-radius: 0.7em;
   -webkit-border-radius: 0.7em;
 overflow: auto;
 margin-bottom: 10px;
}

div.full-bar h2 {
 color: #C71418;
 font-weight: bold;
 margin: 2px;
}

div.stories-wide {
 overflow: auto;
 height: 155px;
 padding-left: 10px;
 padding-right: 0px;
 margin-left: auto;
 margin-right:auto;
}

div.stories-wide div.sideStory { margin: 2px; }

div.sideStory {
 position: relative;
 float: left;
 width: 150px;
 height: 150px;
 margin: 1px;
}

img.sideStoryImage {
 width: 150px;
 height: 150px;
}

div.sideStoryText {
 padding: 3px;
 background: url('../images/pale.png');
 position: absolute;
 bottom: 0px;
}

div.sideStoryText a {
 color: white;
}

As I said, most of that will change depending on your theme. The trick with the layout I use is to use absolute positioning of the sideStoryText div over the image and to use a transparent background (images/pale.png) to make the text readable.

I’ve added this feature because I’ve noticed a steady increase in the number of non-English language sites linking here. This includes several international message boards including ones in Chinese and one in Spanish. I suspect that most of these visitors speak English better than I can speak any of their languages, but I nevertheless hope that this widget helps.

I’ve just been looking through the logs and its rather obvious that those posts are among the most viewed posts on this blog. I’d like to post them more often, but they take quite a while to write what with the background research and the thumbnail gallery. We’re getting there slowly.

Have you noticed how the way we are presented with the date has changed online? Examples include “5 hours ago”, “yesterday”, “Monday 5pm”. Personally I blame Facebook, but the result is rather friendlier that just a straight time stamp. I put together the following simple PHP function to generate Facebook style posting dates:

function facebookDate($time) {

  #Difference in seconds between now and the supplied time
  $difference = time()-$time;
  if ( $difference < 3600 ) {
    #Within last hour
    return round($difference/60).' minutes ago';
  } elseif ( $difference < 86400 ) {
    #Within last 24 hours
    return round($difference/3660).' hours ago';
  } elseif ( $time > strtotime('yesterday') ) {
    #Yesterday
    return 'Yesterday at '.date('H:i', $time);
  } elseif ( $difference < 604800 ) {
    #Within last week
    return date('D \a\t H:i', $time);
  } elseif ( $time > mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, date("Y")) ) {
    #Since Jan 01 this year
    return date('d F \a\t H:i', $time);
  } else {
    return date('d F Y \a\t H:i', $time);
  }
}

Its not really rocket science, but it seems to work quite well. The only input it a standard UNIX timestamp which means you have to use

<?=facebookDate(get_the_time('U'));?>

if you’re using WordPress.