Credits: Written by Judd Winick; art by Sami Basri; coloured by Sunny Gho and Jessica Kholinne; lettered by John J. Hill;  edited by Rachel  Gluckstern (associate) and Mike Carlin; cover by Basri and Gho.

Synopsis “One Step Forward — Two Steps Back”: Power Girl remembers telling Maxwell Lord about the time that Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Booster Gold, Fire, Ice, and herself fought the Royal Flush Gang in the Florida swamps. However, nobody else remembers Max due to a telepathic command that PG has only recently broken (issue #18). She presents the facts about Lord to her team-mates in the JLA All-Stars and Batman (Dick Grayson), but as the pieces start falling into place they all pause and involuntarily forget everything about him. Batman notes that PG is crying even through she can’t remember why. Later she has a nightmare of Divine and Max showing up at her Starrware offices, but even when she wakes up she can’t remember that Max was in the dream. She doesn’t have time to ponder its meaning as Nicco informs her that he’s traced Divine and Crash to Vietnam via a lost ear-ring communicator. PG investigates and discovers a cloaked facility. Professor Ivo appears beside her and tells her that she’s been a large part of his work recently (the implication is that he’s responsible for Divine). He then reveals that the cloaked facility is the new Cadmus Project and shows her the monster’s he’s been building.

Continuity: Max owns wetlands in Chokoloskee, Florida. A lot of what is shown/referenced in this issue took place in Justice League: Generation Lost. Magog is referenced as being dead so this takes place after Generation Lost #13, Professor Ivo was shown working for Max in his Chinese robotics facility in Generation Lost #11. The implication is that Ivo is responsible for Divine’s creation. The Cadmus Project – show here – is referenced as being responsible for the creation of the Creature Commandos shown in Generation Lost #15.

Opinion: It’s not very often that Power Girl is made to look vulnerable, but she has really been put through the ringer by Maxwell Lord. The strain that he’s putting her under really comes across on the page – not just in the writing, but also in the subtly of her expressions and body language. It really shows that all the creators are pulling together to tell a nicely balanced story. The repeated forgetting of PG and Batman isn’t over stated. It happened once in Generation Lost and has now happened once here. It isn’t laboured, but repeats just enough of the beat to keep readers who just follow one book up to speed. The seriousness of the central part of the box is nicely balanced by the opening JLI flashback and the reveal of Cadmus’s daffy menagerie. While I like Generation Lost a lot, but I think the clear and consistent art lifts Power Girl above it as a series.

Credits: Written by Judd Winick; art by Sami Basri; coloured by Sunny Gho and Jessica Kholinne; lettered by John J. Hill;  edited by Rachel  Gluckstern (associate) and Mike Carlin; cover by Basri and Gho.

Synopsis “Snow Job Part Two”: Batman (Dick Grayson) continues to aid Power Girl in her search for the mastermind who stole money from her company and created the C.R.A.S.H. android. They raid the arms dealer who was trying to sell C.R.A.S.H. when it went live (back in PG #14) and he tells them that it was briefly stored in Antarctica. They knew this was connected with the purchase of massive thermal generators (implying somewhere cold), but they needed to narrow the search area down. Power Girl’s superspeed/x-ray search of the ice cap finds a man-made structure hidden beneath the ice. However, she’s ambushed by a super strong masked combatant as she approaches the base. Nicco’s remote sensors can’t get a lock on his physiology, but whoever it is they’re as strong as Power Girl. She finally manages to pull her attacker’s mask off to reveal that “he” is actually a dark-haired female just as Nicco radios her that the woman is a kryptonian.

Continuity: C.R.A.S.H. stands for “Cybernetic Re-Adaptive Simulant Humanoid”.

Opinion: Well I didn’t see that one coming – another excellent twist by Judd Winick. I’m writing this review after I’ve read the next issue so I (and possible you dear reader) know who the raven-haired kryptonian is. However at the time my mind was racing with who she could be – a survivor from Kandor, one of Zod’s crew escaped from the Phantom Zone, another Mutliverse refugee. The fight with Divine (she get’s named next issue) was the opening sequence for last issue so it’s almost two issues of re-sequenced drama before we’re back in sync. This works really well and gives a boost to what could have been a very procedural/non-action investigation. It seems that Dick Grayson gets his best solo outings as Batman in Justice League titles. Both James Robinson and Judd Winick manage to retain that sense of joy and flair he had as Nightwing whereas most of the Bat-titles tend to over do the Bruce Wayne Batman impersonation.

To coincide with the start of the crossover Newsarama has interviewed Mark Bagley, the JLA artist who is pulling double duty on the JLA and JSA chapters. He talks about meeting Alan Scott’s original aritst,

Green Lantern is fun to draw because I knew Marty Nodell [the character's co-creator], and hung out with him and his wife a lot over the years. They both passed recently, and it was fun to know them. I can see me doing that in 10 or 15 years, just doing convention after convention and just hanging out with fans and doing sketches and stuff.

and about the differences in his inkers styles,

I’ve got two inkers anyway. JLA is 30 pages a month. I think we might be going back to 22 in the future, but for now, we’re splitting it up between Rob Hunter and Norm Rapmund. Norm is doing 10 pages out of 30, and Rob is doing 20. Rob didn’t think he could do 30 and do a quality job. He likes to have a life, whereas, I don’t have a life, so that works out well. I think during the crossover, Norm is inking the JSA issues and Rob is inking the JLA issues.

They have similar styles. Norm’s a little more controlled than Rob is. And Rob’s a little more expressive with his inks. It actually doesn’t look bad next to each other. Aside from that, they have similar sensibilities when inking a page. So I don’t mind having two inkers as much as I normally would.

It’s harder to ink than you’d think. Inking isn’t tracing. And when you bring as much to the book as these guys do… especially Rob, who I recently talked to about even pulling back on some of the detail, some of the really strong inking that he does. Sometimes less is more. He’s really working hard at it and it looks amazing. I think he’s becoming an even better inker.

It’s a nice interview and Mark scotches earlier rumours by saying he’s having a blast on JLA and is on the book for the foreseeable future.

Dick Grayson

Dick Grayson is the original Robin, the archetypical sidekick. He first appeared in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) in a story by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson. Grayson was the orphaned son of murdered trapeze artists. Bruce Wayne identified with Grayson’s plight and offered to become his guardian. Grayson joined Wayne’s crime fighting Batman alter ego as Robin, the Boy Wonder. He possessed a natural acrobatic skill which carried over into his crime-fighting activities. He had a more easy-going and friendly demeanour than his mentor and made friends throughout the superhero community. However, his closest friends were the sidekicks of Batman’s Justice League allies and together they formed their own group, the Teen Titans, with Robin as their leader (The Brave & the Bold vol. 1 #54, July 1964).

Grayson’s relationship with his mentor became strained as he grew to adulthood. He aborted a university education and spent almost all his time with the Titans. A close encounter with the Joker prompted Batman to “announce” Robin’s retirement – Wayne’s attempt to force Grayson into a safer career. However, Dick was unwilling to quit and assumed another identity, the Nightwing (Tales of the Teen Titans #44, July 1984). It is telling that Grayson picked a character from the mythology of Superman’s homeworld and not from the bat/robin iconography of Batman’s world. Nightwing was successful, both as leader of the Titans and as an independent hero. In time the rift between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson healed and Dick became an older brother to Tim Drake, his successful successor as Robin.

Batman was pivotal in Darkseid’s defeat during the Final Crisis. The New God’s last spiteful action was to throw Bruce Wayne through time with the Omega Effect. All of Wayne’s friends and allies (except for Tim Drake) believed him dead. Dick quit the Titans after Bruce died (Titans #11, May 200), closed down his secret identity as a museum curator in New York (Nightwing #152-153, March-April 2009) and devoted himself to the growing crisis in Gotham City. The power vacuüm created in Gotham City by Batman’s absence almost tore the city apart and Jason Todd – another ex-Robin – sought to fill that vacuum by becoming a new bloodthirsty Batman. Dick clung on to his Nightwing identity, until his confrontation with Todd finally forced him to accept that Batman was too deeply engrained into Gotham City’s psyche to let die (Batman: Battle for the Cowl #1-3, May-July 2009).

Grayson worked to make the world believe that Batman was still alive. He even warned the JLA about trying to honour Batman’s passing. He told them “The criminals [...] need to think he can’t die. They need to still think he’s out there. Batman lives. Always.” (Batman #687, Aug 2009). Not only did the world not know that Batman had died, but they also didn’t know that Bruce Wayne was dead. Just before Batman “died” the villain Hush had himself surgically altered to look like Wayne as part of a foiled scheme. With Wayne gone, Hush now found himself kept on a short leash by Alfred Pennyworth and Grayson. For the time being they have allowed Hush to continue posing as Bruce Wayne as it served their own purposes (Streets of Gotham #1-3, Aug-Oct 2009).

Grayson moved the Batman’s base of operations to the Bunker beneath the Wayne Foundation building and created a new Batmobile with flight capabilities. Grayson’s Batman was more visible that the original and was noted by commentators as being more vocal. He did adopt some of Wayne’s grimness, but that didn’t totally subdue his older persona. He confessed to Alfred,

I’ve always known what I’d do if.. if anything happened to Bruce. I just didn’t want to face it. That was my worst, worst nightmare when I was a kid. This is what kept we awake at 3.30 AM. As long as I was Nightwing I could pretend that I’d never have to take over as Batman. I could act as if he’d always be around.

Dick Grayson (Batman and Robin #1, Aug 2009, written by Grant Morrison).

Grayson’s Batman was going to take on Damian Wayne (Bruce’s son with Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter) as the new Robin. This left Tim Drake (Bruce Wayne’s Robin) feeling alienated. Drake had refused to accept that Bruce was dead and, knowing that he would have to break some rules, assumed the identity of Red Robin (one of Jason Todd’s multitude of aliases) in order to stop any come back from causing problems for Dick and his allies. Tim then left Gotham City to search for clues to Bruce Wayne’s whereabouts and found that the only other person who believed in his crusade was Ra’s Al Ghul and his League of Assassins (Red Robin #1, Aug 2009). Coincidentally Damian Wayne had been trained by the League of Assassins and he had inherited his father and grandfather’s intensity and demeanour. The new Batman and Robin chaffed against each other’s personalities. Damian disobeyed Grayson’s orders while fighting Professor Pyg’s circus troop and was kidnapped. The experience of being saved only slightly softened Damian’s demeanour, but he at least started to obey Grayson’s orders (Batman and Robin #1-3, Aug-Oct 2009).

Dick had to prove himself during the weeks following “Batman”‘s return. Two-Face, the Penguin, and Black Mask each sought to control crime in Gotham, but Two-Face, who had tangled with Nightwing just before Batman’s death, thought he recognised the new Batman. He even managed to break into the old Batcave, but a ruse by Alfred and Grayson managed to convince him that Grayson was indeed the real Batman (Batman #688-691, Sept-Early Dec 2009). The other claimant to the Batman cowl, Jason Todd, returned as the Red Hood, an even more lethal vigilante with his own sidekick called Scarlet (one of the girls defaced by Pyg). Todd argued that Grayson’s Batman couldn’t replace Bruce, but he ended up having to save Todd from a legendary hitman called the Flamingo (Batman and Robin #4-6, Nov 2009-Jan 2010).

Why does Dick deserve to be in the Justice League? Because he deserves to be Batman. Because he’s been in the League before. Because he’s led the League when Batman has been dead before (Joe Kelly’s “Obsidian Age” storyline). Even before that he was part of one of the UN’s Justice League Task Forces. As Nightwing he has been on the League’s radar of potential members for quite some time, but he has declined at least three offers of membership. The first when the “Big Seven” were enlarging the League (JLA Secret Files #2, 1998) and then when there was an aborted attempt to rebuild the League immediately before the Infinite Crisis (JLA #121, Dec 2005). Most recently when Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were building a list of potential members in “The Tornado Path” they considered offering Nightwing membership. Superman and other League founders were in favour, but Batman noted that he’d already asked Nightwing and that he had declined.

Everything changed with Bruce Wayne’s death. It has taken time for Dick to get use to his new role as Batman and everything attached to that (sidekick, Gotham, team-ups, etc). He’s already had his first team-up with Superman so Batman’s seat with the Justice League is the last part of his inheritance from Bruce Wayne. The unresolved question about Dick Grayson’s attachment to the League is whether he’s going to end up as its leader. He’s led practically every other group he’s been associated with and there isn’t another clear leader in the League’s new line-up.

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.

Besides some feedback on the new Batman and Robin, it was noted that with some of the changes in store for the Titans, that Dick Grayson might not fit on that team anymore.

In addition “What we’re going to see in 2010 is how the Titans and Justice League books crossover a little more than they have in the past and probably in a way they never have before” explained DiDio.

Speaking of Titans, with James Robinson bringing Donna Troy onto his upcoming Justice League, will she be getting a codename?

“She’s one of those people a nickname doesn’t stick to, like Jean Grey,” reasoned DiDio. “Troia was tough. She’s not going to be Wonder Girl anymore. Do you want to call her Darkstar? Not really. For us, Donna Troy stands for something, means something, and the name is recognizable so we’re just leaving it as is.”

There is a certain logic to this as Dick Grayson (as Batman) and Donna Troy, both current members of the Titans, are going to be moving over to the Justice League with James Robinson’s post-Blackest Night issues. How with will play out with replacement Trinity (Mon-El, Bat-Grayson, and Donna) versus the, assumed, eventual return of the actual Trinity remains to be seen. Maybe they’ll make an event of it.