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.

You can find an MP3 download podcast of the panel on DC’s website. There were quite a few creators present, but the JLI and JLI books took up most of the discussion.

Justice League

Jim Lee introduced the Justice League:

It’s been a real delight working with Geoff [Johns], we’ve talked about working together for a long time. And it’s great to be on a team book again, honestly. I’ve been working on single character books for a long time. All those characters have side kicks and foils and things like that to interact with, but it’s predominantly a single flavour that you get out of Superman or Batman. Doing a team book gives you a completely different dynamic. It’s all about the interaction between all these iconic characters and Geoff is just a master at exploring the personalities behind the masks. The characters have different ideologies and personalities, it’s great having that interaction between characters like Batman and Green Lantern.

There is a lot of humour, I actually laugh a lot each time I read the script, probably in places I’m not supposed to be. I always learn something working with new writers for the first time, he’s [Geoff] really brought out the humanity in these characters. I hope you guys get a kick out of it.

Later in the Aquaman segment Geoff Johns touched on the humour element.

I’m really trying to inject some humour into all my books this time around from Justice League, to Aquaman, to Green Lantern get back to, instead of superheroes talking with other superheroes all the time, have superheroes interacting with real people.

Geoff on Hawkman:

He’s also a member of the Justice League. Everybody’s having a meeting and they’re all talking and a big mace falls on the table. They look up and Hawkman’s there. He sits down and goes “don’t worry, it’s not my blood!

How Cyborg can be a founding member of the Justice League given that he was originally a the Teen Titans character will be addressed in Justice League. Adding Cyborg to the team is about shaking things up, Geoff Johns said that:

I didn’t want to do the same seven that everybody predicts. The Martian Manhunter, well you’ll see where the Martian Manhunter is at, in the storyline, the origin, but, I like Cyborg, I think he’s a great character. I’ve written him for years and years in the Titans and Flash and I really think he’s a modern-day superhero. I don’t know if anybody in here doesn’t have an online identity, but he’s online and offline all the time.

Jim Lee was asked whether the Justice League costumes were “Paul Gambini originals?”

The design on Justice League. We wanted them to be obviously a team and we had a chance to design the costumes in a way that subtly suggests that they are team-like  so there are similarities between the costumes. The high collars, I just think they look more regal more majestic. If you look at a lot of the more open-collar costumes, like Superman and Aquaman, [they] harken back to the late 1930s and 40s strongman kind of appearance. So it was just giving it an update.

It was also noted that Ivan Reis had put that a high collar on Aquaman before Jim Lee came to do the JLA costume redesign.

Another questioner brought up the Manhunter issue and Johns reiterated that J’onzz’s status will be addressed somewhere in the first arc (“there is a story to be had there”), but from a larger perspective there is an in-universe reason in the New 52 as to why there is only one alien (to wit Superman) on the Justice League. Geoff jokes that “When everybody see him they’re like “its a Martian!” and Hal’s like “hey dude”. The Manhunter will be in Paul Cornell’s Stormwatch.

Other questions:

• Why isn’t Dick Grayson carried over in a team, even through he’s now Nightwing? Johns said that Nightwing was left out of the Justice League explicitly because he was such a good team player – an anti-social Batman makes for more interesting drama.
• A woman questioner commented that condensing the DC timeline into five years must make it “really traumatic five years” for those who had to live through it. Geoff Johns said that would be addressed.
• We’ll be getting new villains in JL. Something like the Legion of Doom, but not called the Legion of Doom, will show up Justice League next year.

Justice League International

Dan Jurgens introduced the new Justice League International:

The Justice League International is an officially United Nations sponsored group [that is] in part is a reaction to the JLA. Batman, Rocket Red, Fire, August General in Iron, Booster, Guy (kinda of in and out a little bit), Vixen, Ice, and its going to be a bit of a rotating membership. Because some of these guys think – and when I say “Guys” is that a clue – some of these guys might think that they deserve to be in a somewhat better group than JLI. So there is a little bit of coming and going as the roster changes and rotates, but it is a group that is put together in direct response to the JLA.

Aaron Lopresti is doing incredible artwork on this book, he’s knocked the ball out of the park page after page. It’s a lot of big open stuff as I think this page shows [the coloured page] and its one of those things that we’re really trying to bring back, I think a lot of action and movement into the DC Universe, lots of big visuals, lots of fun stuff. As you can see here too [surprised as second JLI page is shown], as we continue on JLI. Not yet coloured, but Aaron and inker Matt Ryan are really going fabulous work on this. There is just tremendous characterisation that is coming through in their artwork, all the figure work, and everything they do.

On the Batman’s inclusion in both teams:

With JLI – I’ve got to figure how to do without giving too much away – let’s put it this way: JLI is a sponsored United Nations organisation that it put together in response to the JLA right? Well the JLA kinda thinks that they have somebody attached to their team that the United Nations knows nothing about. So he’s [Batman] kind of the bridge between the two teams and it’s not like the Batman would ever do what the UN tells him to. So he’s there because he thinks that’s where he should be and building a bit of a conduit between the two groups.

Dan Jurgens later brought the JLI cover back up and pointed out that none of the characters, with the exception of Batman, were wearing masks:

One of the things we’re building in the new DC Universe, as it pertains to this group, is the idea that all these people are much more known than typical, and remember I said that Batman was there without the UN’s permission. They went though an exercise that said we don’t want people with masks and identities we don’t necessarily know, and we sure don’t want any aliens.

Diversity

Issues about of the new line’s diversity was raised several times. Mister Terrific’s Eric Wallace stressed that the drive to increase diversity wasn’t limited to the headline characters, but there was also effort put in to increase the diversity of the supporting casts and the background characters.

The questions about diversity also prompted responses that revealed details that various writers may otherwise have held off until their books would have appeared. Dan Jurgens said that August-General-In-Iron had become one of his favourite characters in the JLI book. Geoff teased that there was a “smaller” character in Justice League who rhymed with “batom” (pretty much telegraphing that the Ryan Choi version of the Atom was to make an appearance).

There was an interesting and slightly tense debate on the prominence of, or lack of, women in the new DCU. This led Geoff to claim that DC has “by far and away more iconic and stronger female superheroes than any other company out there.” The questioner countered that most of those were “Girl” representations of “Man” characters and not adult “Women”. She made several very good points and the panel struggled to convince her that things were being addressed.

Just from my own survey of the Justice League books – Justice League International and Dark are both 50% male/female. The flagship JL title isn’t so balanced as it looks like just Wonder Woman, but there are other characters like Mera and Element Woman, who we haven’t seen yet so we may have to wait to pass judgement on that one.

It was unfortunate that Bob Wayne had to silence the audience at one point.

New York Comic Con is well under way and there are details of future JLA storylines floating out from the various DC panels.

From the DC Universe panel ( CBR / Comics Alliance ):

• CBR quoting James Robinson: “Out of all that [JLA #50 featuring the Crime Syndicate] we get a new villain, but one of the ramifications for that is that Supergirl in the Justice League will be Dark Supergirl.”
• The plotline after the Crime Syndicate story will be the Shadow War which is a sequel to “The Dark Things” and picks up the White Lantern prophecy/command for Jade/Obsidian.
• CBR quoting James Robinson on the “Shadow War”: “You’ll see Obsidian become a really cool hero in a way he’s never done before.” Robinson added that “One of the first things [Eclipso] does i murder the Spectre.”
• There will be a Congorilla one-shot.

The usual “slips” were evident. Dan Didio let slip that Cyborg will be re/joining the JLA (Comics Alliance) and James Robinson inadvertently let slip that he’s doing a Hawkman series when Ian Sattler actually meant for him to announce his Congorilla oneshot (CBR).

Cyborg

Victor Stone was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez for The New Teen Titans. He first previewed in DC Comics Present #25 (Oct 1980), before making his first real appearance in The New Teen Titans #1 (Nov 1980). Many times Cyborg’s team-mates have called him “the tin man with a heart” for it is his essential humanity and decency that have defined him and not the cybernetics and metal that cover much of his body. He takes after his scientist parents with an IQ of 170, but he rebelled against their home schooling and sought companionship at a normal high-school student. He became a medal winning athlete and may even have turned professional if it hadn’t been for an accident at his father’s laboratory. Vic lost his arms, legs, half his head, and a significant fraction of his internal organs to the accident.

Vic’s father was a cyberneticist and he used his own prototype technology to save his son by replacing Vic’s damaged organs, limbs, and skin with gleaming metal implants. His new body was faster, stronger, and tougher than his original, but Vic only saw himself as a half-man/half-machine monster. The empath Raven sensed Vic’s despair and recruited him into the reformed Teen Titans. It took Vic years to come to terms with his machine nature, but at least the Titans gave him a place in the world. It was with the Titans that Vic met his best-friend, Garfield Logan (Beast Boy/Changeling), a young man who like Vic had been transformed into a superhuman/freak by scientist-parents who were just trying to save his life (New Teen Titans 1#, Nov 1980, DC Special Cyborg #1, July 2008).

Victor Stone’s life has been a struggle to retain that part of his humanity which still remains intact. He almost totally lost himself to the technology when he bonded with an alien race called the Technis and unwittingly became a threat to the Earth. The Justice League thought that the Technis/Cyborg union was an enemy and the Titans had to fight their mentors to save their friend (JLA/Titans #1-3, Dec-Feb 1998-99). Nightwing and his friends were able to move Victor’s conciousness into a new hybrid biological/living-metal body. This new body allowed his to appear human again, but a fight with the Thinker’s digital intelligence caused the alien metal to spontaneously downgrade into a configuration that exactly matched his original cybernetic body.

The Justice League had insisted Cyborg stay with the Titans as a condition of his freedom after the Technis affair, but he came into conflict with them again after the death of Donna Troy. A new Teen Titans were formed with Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy as mentors to the former-Young Justice. Some of the Leaguers were initially distrustful of their pupils joining the Titans, but Stone managed to allay their fears (Teen Titans #6, Feb 2004). He appeared to find a new purpose as their leader and the heart of the new group. He also seemed to find a peace with his own cybernetic nature. Few saw his workshop beneath Titans Tower where he allowed himself to be completely disassembled each night by machines that preformed a constant cycle of maintenance and upgrades. Vic had inherited his father’s gift for cybernetics and had made himself completely responsible for his own body so that he was not reliant on STAR Labs or other facilities for his routine “health” (Teen Titans #9, May 2004).

During the Infinite Crisis Cyborg accompanied the recently resurrected Donna Troy in her investigation of the spatial rift that had opened in deep space. However, there was an accident when the survivors tried to teleport away from the collapsing rift. Unlike Starfire, Cyborg actually made it to Earth, but his body somehow became fused with Firestorm’s body on a molecular level. Doctor Mid-Nite of the JSA was able to keep them both stable until they could be separated (52 Week #5, 7 June 2006). Firestorm survived their merging relatively unscathed (52 Week #24 18 Oct 2006), but Cyborg wasn’t so lucky. He was heavily damaged and appeared inoperable. Deshaun, the fiancée of Vic’s old girlfriend Sarah Charles, studied Vic’s condition, but he was unable to reassemble him (DC Special Cyborg #1-6, July-Dec 2008).

Without a senior Titan to lead them the Teen Titans floundered amid an ever-expanding roster of neophyte or untested teen heroes. After Deshaun’s failure to repair Cyborg, Beast Boy had recruited the twin geniuses Marvin and Wendy Harris. It took them six months to repair his cybernetics sufficiently for his core systems to reboot. Many of the Titans found it comforting to talk or bound idea off of the unconscious Cyborg in much in the same way that people talk to coma patients. Cyborg wasn’t conscious of this, but enough of his circuitry was online for it to record everything they said to him. When he finally awoke Vic was saddened and shocked at the state of the Teen Titans and he immediately re-recruited former members Wonder Girl and Beast Boy (Teen Titans #34-37, May-Aug 2006).

With the Teen Titans becoming more self-reliant on the West Coast, Vic decided he should try recreating their success with an East Coast team. None of the other senior Titans were available, so he put together his own group including the latest Hawk and Dove, Anima, Little Barda, Son of Vulcan, Lagoon Boy, and Power Boy. The new group appeared to have potential, but they were ambushed during an early training session by three Trigon Seeds (Raven’s siblings) who were looking to kill as many former Titans as possible. Power Boy was killed and Cyborg was left as an immobile torso (Titans East Special #1, Jan 2008). Nevertheless, the attacks did prompt a reformation of the original Titans as a group (Titans #1-4, June-Sept 2008).

An individual matching Cyborg’s description was reported to have attacked several STAR Labs facilities. Upon investigating Vic discovered that a former friend had been turned into a military-grade duplicate of himself. Vic, the Titans, and Teen Titans stopped his rampage, but they discovered a conspiracy coordinated by the intelligence broker “Mr Orr” to turn injured soldiers into cybernetic super -oldiers using technology stolen by Deshaun. Vic wasn’t against helping injured soldiers to walk again, but he was horrified to see his father’s technology perverted into a lethal weapon. Even Orr’s Cyborg Revenge Squad couldn’t stop Cyborg reasserting control of his family’s intellectual property (DC Special Cyborg #1-6, July-Dec 2008).

Joey Wilson, the body hoping son of Slade Wilson (the Terminator), had once been a Titan, but the strain of jumping through so many people’s minds had sent him insane. He had tried to assassinate several presidential candidates and to kill his team-mates, before the JLA and Titans defeated him. However, Joey had hidden himself deep in Vic mind. He used Cyborg’s electronic interfaces with Titans Tower to spy on the new Teen Titans team and then attempted to kill them before he was again defeated (Titans #11, Teen Titans #69, Teen Titans Annual #1). The Titans knew that a psychopathic killer called Vigilante was after Joey, whom they still hoped to save, so they staged a battle with Cyborg making it look like he was still possessed. Vigilante show up and blew the machine part of Vic’s head off. Cyborg remained unconscious while the Titans and Vigilante clashed with Joey’s latest attempt to kill them (“Deathtrap”).

Afterwards Vic undertook an intensive routine of upgrade and maintenance on all the Titans and Teen Titans systems until Beast Boy pulled him away to spend some time in the daylight. He’d been punishing himself for the death of Power Boy and was afraid that the Titans, his family as he saw them, was drifting apart again. Beast Boy and Saran Simms pushed Vic to start dating again and recommended an online dating service. After several anti-technology encounters with a couple of friends and former friends, he finally decided to leave the technology side behind and accepted a blind date with a scientist called Dr Tamara Belson (Titans #14, Aug 09).

Vic had been the one who has pressed for the Titans reformation – something the others resisted until the attack on Vic’s Teen Titans East. However, they had all slowly begun drifting into other lives or roles leaving Vic and Starfire to hold the fort at the Titans Compound in New York. An attack by Phobia forced Vic and Kory to re-evaluate their own insecurities, for Vic it was the fear of loosing his team-mates (Titans #21-22, Mar-April 2010).

Why does Cyborg deserve to be in the Justice League? Because Vic would already be in the Justice League if Superman and co. were in charge. His name was first put forward by the trinity in the “Tornado’s Path” story arc and he was universally agreed upon as a good candidate. Batman noted that Dick Grayson had told him Cyborg was ready to join the League and would definitely say yes if asked. As fate would have it Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman didn’t get to determine the roster of the new League so Cyborg wasn’t asked at that stage.

Cyborg is the standard bearer of the Wolfman/Perez New Titans as an independent group. He was the leader of Geoff Johns’ Teen Titans and was responsible for bringing the New Titans back together. If he is joining the Justice League is a definite signal that the New Titans do not exist as a group any more.

The Titans

The original Teen Titans team dates from the early 1960s, but it’s really Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s team from The New Teen Titans #1 (November 1980) that most people know of as the Titans (minus the Teen prefix).

This group was composed of the three founding members of the Teen Titans – Dick Grayson (Robin/Nightwing), Donna Troy (Wonder Girl/Troia), Wally West (Kid Flash/Flash) – plus one Doom Patrol graduate – Garfield Logan (Changeling/Beast Boy) – and three new characters Victor Stone (Cyborg), Princess Koriand’r of Tamaran (Starfire), and Raven. The two other founding members of the original Teen Titans were Roy Harper (Speedy/Arsenal) and Garth (Aqualad/Tempest). This is the broadly the same group that has run in the Titans ongoing series.

Of late, the Titans have begun to grow apart. Raven and Beast Boy are the closest in age to the current Teen Titans and have moved to their team to give them more experience. Garth was killed in Blackest Night #1. Roy Harper is still a driving presence in storylines coming out of Cry For Justice, but for the moment he is still laid up in hospital. Wally West was meant to have had a co-feature in the new Flash ongoing series, but that was shelved in order to have a cleaner reintroduction of Barry Allen’s character. So over half of the team have found niches elsewhere. The remaining Titans (Donna Troy, Cyborg, Starfire, Dick Grayson) are among those who are either the most powerful or those that have had the most exposure over the last few years.

I would note that this is not the first time that there has been “graduation” from the Titans into the Justice League. Wally West was the first to graduate to the Justice League in Justice League Europe #1. Roy Harper graduated to become Red Arrow at the start of this current Justice League of America series, but lost his arm to Prometheus in Cry For Justice #5 and remains inactive. Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern/Ion) and Conner Hawke (Green Arrow) are contemporaries (in terms of age) of the original Titans and they were both members of the Justice League. In Kyle’s case he was Green Lantern for all of Grant Morrison and Mark Waid’s runs on JLA.

In many ways they are a generation of lost heroes. The Titans are really a bit to too old to be considered inexperienced or sidekicks any more, but the perpetual DC timeline means that their mentors haven’t retired yet. That has slightly changed during this last year as the big three have been taken off the map by adventures within their own books. That has allowed Donna Troy and Dick Grayson to step forward into Wonder Woman and Batman’s positions with the Justice League.

Dick Grayson has been in the League before,  he was the leader of the Batman’s replacement Justice League in Joe Kelly’s “Obsidian Age” storyline. When Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were building a list of potential members in “The Tornado Path” they even  considered Grayson as a member. Superman and Wonder Woman were in favour, but Batman noted that he’d already asked Nightwing and that he declined at that time. Cyborg’s name was also put forward by the Trinity and he was universally agreed upon – Batman noted that Dick Grayson had told him Cyborg was ready to join the League and he would definitely say yes if asked. As fate would have it Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman didn’t get to decide the roster of that League so Cyborg wasn’t asked.

My argument is that the appearance of these four Titans in the League isn’t some random chance. These characters have been built up over the five years or so to have larger presences in the DC Universe and that has naturally culminated with them joining the Justice League. They are great characters and I look forward to their adventures with the League.

A full page advert (above) in this week’s Blackest Night #3 revealed the JLA roster that had previously been blanked out on preview images. The advert proclaims “October 2009. James Robinson. Mark Bagley. Justice League of America. Issue 38. A new era begins.” It also features a copy of the preview artwork with the full cast revealed (shown below).

There are three distinct groups of overlapping characters in that picture. The first group is Green Lantern (Hal), Green Arrow (Ollie) and the Atom were members of the original League and are the feature characters in Robinson’s current JLA: Cry For Justice mini-series. Congorilla is also featured in Cry, but this is his debut as a proper Justice Leaguer.

The second group is what I’d called the “Conway members”, those members of the League added to the rollcall because the writer happens to also be writing their solo title, i.e., in the way that Gerry Conway brought his Firestorm into the satellite era League or Grant Morrison brought Aztek into the Big 7 run. In this case Robinson is currently writing Superman featuring Mon-El. The Guardian is a major supporting character in Superman and he’s been flirting with his neighbour, Doctor Light. Mon-El, Guardian, and Light are all in the above image. She’s also important as she’s the only member shown who survives from the end of Dwayne McDuffie’s League.

The third group, and in some ways the most surprising, is the Titans. Donna Troy is appearing for Wonder Woman and Dick Grayson is there as he’s currently Batman. I suspect there is a major event building for Wonder Woman in Blackest Night – she’s in the final wave of BN DC Direct figures, but nobody knows why. We knew Dick and Donna already, but they’re now joined by Starfire and Cyborg.  She had recently refused Doctor Light’s offer of League membership. Where this leaves the currently meandering Titans title is unknown, but we had been warned the two teams would be coming closer together.

When Brad Meltzer relaunched this title he included Arsenal as the Titan who steps up to take his mentor’s place as Red Arrow. Former Titan Wally West eventually rejoined the group as the Flash, but he’s been a JLA member since his time with Justice League Europe. And while I’m on this divergence – notice that there is no Flash in the image, neither Barry Allen or Wally West appear, but that stop  any Flash Rebirth spoilers.

It’s an interesting roster and at eleven members one of the larger we’ve seen recently. I wouldn’t be too surprised if that image changed slightly when the issue actually ships (its something they did with the last comparable image). I certainly expect that Mon-El, Dick, and maybe Donna will make way for the real Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman once their individual plot-lines are tied up. That wouldn’t make the line-up look so radical – you’d then have six original members and only two former Titans.