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Justice League of America (vol. 2)

Justice League of America (vol. 2) #37

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By Jason Kirk / 26 September 2009 / Recent Comic Book Series / 0 Comments

JLA #37 is the last part of a story that bridges the end of Dwayne McDuffie’s prematurely curtailed JLA run and the start of his successors, James Robinson (currently writing the JLA mini-series Cry For Justice) and Mark Bagley (late of the Trinity weekly). The writer of this story arc (including JLA #35 and JLA #36) is veteran JLA writer Len Wein who wrote the League’s adventures in the 1970s and the artist is Tom Derenick.

From his privately owned Mississippi steamer Professor Amos Fortune and Roulette are playing a high stakes card game. He is using his own Royal Flush Gang while Roulette is backing the Justice League to win. The results are being relayed to her international gambling TV network. Fortune sent three of the Flush gang’s suits to different high profile locations to force the Justice League to divide their resources. Fortune had equipped his cards with the probability altering technology he had stolen from the casino (JLA #35) with the hope that it would swing the odds of winning away from the JLA.

jla4_37_panel1

Wonder Woman and the Red Tornado stop the Heart Suit from robbing the New York Museum of Natural History and are almost defeated by their own improbable bad luck. Ditto for Plastic Man and Doctor Light versus Spade Suit at Stellar Studios, Los Angeles and Firestorm and Vixen against the Diamond Suit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. In each case the Leaguers are almost defeated after they seem to make amateurish mistakes, but it still isn’t enough to let the Royal Flush Gangs defeat them. Vixen notices a floating camera relaying the fight to Roulette’s viewer and has the Red Tornado track the signal to Fortune’s river boat. The League storm the boat, but Fortune has held his Diamond Suit in reserve. They can’t defeat the League, but they do give Roulette and Fortune enough time to escape.

Afterwards, Roulette’s part in the affair become clearer. She reluctantly delivers a data drive containing the surveillance data on the Justice League and various other parties to the Key.

jla4_37_panel2

I find Roulette and the Key working for a superior an interesting proposition as neither of them is particularly given to minion status. Given the events in Cry For Justice it would be logical to assume that their unnamed overlord is Prometheus. A second epilogue shows the wife of a deceased Royal Flush Gang member apparently murdering Amos Fortune for sacrificing her husband.

This issue is a strong finale to what’s been an enjoyable three issue storyline. Len Wein manages to place this story in the context of the League’s ongoing problems and thus makes it feel connected to the ongoing narrative. (Just my opinion, but there is a potential problem with Justice League stories that don’t connect with anything else. It can work to the story’s advantage when they’ve got a strong roster (e.g the Morrison Big-7), but it can also leave the story feeling a little hollow if you don’t think there will be any sort of follow up. A League adventure should be a big deal and should have repercussions.)

Again with the multiple inkers. Each of these guys does sterling work, but please can we get back to the good old tradition of one penciller, one inker per issue.

The Verdict

Site Reviewer Original Score %
Reviews Portal Comic Book Resources Doug Zawisza 2.5/5 50
Reviews Portal IGN Jason Sacks 1.5/5 30
Community Reviews Comics Vine User Reviews Ave of 0 review/s /5 0
Community Reviews iFanboy 183 pulls 2.8/5 56
Character Site Superman Homepage Michael Bailey 3 (story) & 3 (art)/5 60
Reviews Blog A Comic Book Blog Wayland 3/5 60
This Site Captain’s JLA Blog Jason Kirk starstarstarstarstar 60%
Grand Average starstarstarstarstar 53%
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It’ll be a larger League says Dan Didio

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By Jason Kirk / 14 September 2009 / Comic Books & Graphic Novels / 0 Comments

Details of the Robinson/Bagley League continue to leak out. Newsarama have just had their regular 20 Questions with DCU Monitor Dan Didio and this time he commented on the size of the new JLA

It’s interesting, for Justice League, one of the versions everybody seems to refer to is the time when Len Wein was writing the book. That’s one of the reasons we just recently went back to Len on the series. Everyone seems to refer to his team as a benchmark, from around Issue #100 to #114. And in those days, what you would have is a team somewhere from 14 to 18 members, but you wouldn’t see them all in every issue. You’d see a combination of characters moving in and out depending on the story being told. It wasn’t that people were joining or quitting; it was just focusing on who was participating in an event at a particular time.

That’s some of what James is going to be doing, so the League seems larger than it has been in the past. It doesn’t mean that every single character is going to be in every single issue. But we have expanded the roster to take advantage of former Justice League members, current Titan members, and also characters who will have an important impact on the DC Universe in the very near future. So you really have an interesting mix of characters coming together. And we’ll be revealing them slowly over the next few months as we are building toward Mark Bagley and James Robinson taking over the book with Issue #38.

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Justice League of America (vol. 2)

Justice League of America (vol. 2) #35

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By Jason Kirk / 02 August 2009 / Recent Comic Book Series / 0 Comments

This issue is the first part of a three-part run by veteran JLA writer Len Wein which fits in between Dwayne McDuffie’s final issue (JLA #34) and James Robinson’s first issue (JLA #38). This could easily have been a straight filler story with an unexplained enlarged roster, but they keep the roster from the last issue. Firestorm, Vixen, and Doctor Light being the only heroes left. Vixen is the only member to survive from Brad Meltzer’s run. Firestorm and Dr Light were picked up along the way and seem to have become members by default more than anything else.

Wein was one of the writers of the original Justice League series. He wrote about a dozen issues starting the first Silver Age appearance of the Seven Soldiers of Victory (JLA v1. #100-102 (Aug-Oct 1972)). That Seven Soldiers story ended with the “death” of the Red Tornado. Wein was also the writer who brought the Elongated Man into the League (JLA v1.  #105 (Apr-May 1973)). So maybe it isn’t a surprise that be fleshes out the short-staffed League by bringing back the Tornado and another stretchable hero, Plastic Man.

This issue starts with an attack on a high-tech Las Vegas casino by the Royal Flush Gang. The Gang taken an entire casino hostage and reveal that they’re working for as mercanaries for a mastermind codenamed “Wildcard.” The five remaining members of the JLA beat off the Royal Flush Gang. However, whilst the League and the casino security were occupied the plain clothed Five of Spaces stole the casino’s nanotech processors – the hearts of their advanced gaming machines.

It is only at the end that the reader is shown the real identity of “Wildcard”. He is Amos Fortune, a manipulator of luck and an old enemy of the League. He and the Justice Society villainess and slaver Roulette are engaged in a card game. He is using the Royal Flush Gang as his deck and she is using the Justice League. She complains to him, “When I agreed to use the Justice League as my players, I expected a better hand.” To which he replys, “Luck of the draw, my dear! You’ve got to play the cards you’re dealt.” One might almost think that those lines were a quotation from a conversation between a JLA writer and his editor.

The art by Tom Derenick for this issue is quite good, but once more we’re given an entire deck of inkers. Please for once can we have a singular, consistent art team on this book. The really nice cover by Eddy Barrows is a case in point. It shows a the Royal Flush Gang in the older versions of their costumes rather than the new variants used by the team in the interior art.

The Verdict

Site Reviewer Original Score %
Reviews Portal Comic Book Resources Doug Zawisza 3/5 60
Reviews Portal IGN Alex C. Lupp 3/5 60
Community Reviews Comics Vine User Reviews Ave of 1 review/s 3.5/5 70
Community Reviews iFanboy 233 pulls 3.2/5 64
Character Site Superman Homepage Michael Bailey 4 (story) & 4 (art)/5 80
Reviews Blog A Comic Book Blog Wayland 3/5 60
Reviews Blog Comics Per Day Reviews Timbotron Fair 60
This Site Captain’s JLA Blog Jason Kirk starstarstarstarstar 50%
Grand Average starstarstarstarstar 63%
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JLA writers: JLA #34 preview @ Newsarama & Robinson interview at CBR

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By Jason Kirk / 20 June 2009 / Comic Books & Graphic Novels / 0 Comments

The change over from Dwayne McDuffie, through Len Wein, to James Robinson continues apace. Newsarama have a preview of JLA #34 and it appears that the credits confusion continues where both JLA #34 and JLA #35 are listed as the first part of Len Wein’s run. Their description in Newsarama’s preview states that:

Len Wein takes over the pages of Justice League in the first of a two-part story featuring Starbreaker.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICAWritten by Len Wein; Art by Jose Luis and JP Mayer; Cover by Ed Benes and Rob Hunter

However, the credits box in the actual preview itself clearly shows:

JLA #34 credits

I really hope this continued misattribution of the credits isn’t some slight towards the departing writer.

Nevertheless, Len Wein takes over from JLA #35 for his three-part Royal Flush Gang story. That was originally a two-parter, but like a tall tale it seems to be getting longer at each telling. CBR has an interview with James Robinson about joining the JLA and they note that Wein’s run will be four-issues.

Unsurprisingly James Robinson’s interview is noncomital on details of his run, but he does comment on the transition from CRY FOR JUSTICE to the main JLA title

“I was very happy to be writing ‘Superman’ and being a part of the Superman team, but when the offer came up and they asked whether I was interested in writing ‘Justice League of America,’ I realized how exciting it would be to fold what happens in ‘Cry for Justice’ into the ‘Justice League’ book and sort of continue on from there,” explained Robinson.

[...]

“What I’m doing is basically picking up where Len Wein left off, getting the team through the traumatic, incredibly exciting but obviously traumatic events of ‘Blackest Night’ and then from that I’m going to build a new team comprising of some big names from the DC Universe and… well, pretty much, a lot of big names from the DC Universe,” Robinson confirmed.

When asked if there would be any holdovers from “Cry for Justice,” Robinson confirmed, “Absolutely. It won’t be the exact same team but half of the team will be going into the new book. I’ll leave it at that.”

I was also interested in a comment towards the end of the interview

But from where I started on ‘Superman,’ I think the book’s got better and better, personally. I’m quite proud of that but with ‘Justice League of America,’ I think I am now more immersed in the lore of the DC Universe. The chains of communication between myself and the Superman writers and Geoff Johns and editors Eddie Berganza and Matt Idelson and Ian Sattler and Dan DiDio are much clearer and we’re moving forward, all of us together, in a very clear direction.

It is arguably that its poor “chains of communication” that led to Dwayne’s furstration with writing JLA and his ultimate removal from the title. Hopefully, James’s comments means that this problem is delibrately being addressed. We’ll find out in October.

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Is JLA #34 written by McDuffie or by Wein?

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By Jason Kirk / 01 June 2009 / Comic Books & Graphic Novels / 0 Comments

JLA #34 cover by Ed Benes and Rob HunterThere is something odd about the listings for JLA on the DC Comics website. The listing for JLA #34 says it is being written by Len Wein, not a big deal as we know he’s writing a fill-in block. However, news that Dwayne McDuffie had been fired came at the same time that JLA #33 hit the stands and that issue concluded with a cliff-hanger. The listing for JLA #35 and JLA #36 also list Wein as the writer.

All the Wein issues feature a Royal Flush Gang story so what’s happened to the conclusion to McDuffie’s last tale? Well, McDuffie wrote a script for the conclusion, and there is an oddity with the description of Wein’s stories. JLA #34 is described as,

“The cards are against the remnants of the Justice League! And those cards are the Royal Flush Gang! Can even Superman and Wonder Woman save a team whose luck has run out? Featuring the deadly return of an old foe in part 1 of a 2-part story.”

JLA #35 is described as,

“The cards are stacked against the remnants of the Justice League! And those cards are the Royal Flush Gang! Can even Superman and Wonder Woman save a team whose luck has run out? Featuring the deadly return of an old foe.”

and JLA #36 is described as,

“In part 2 of the 3-part “Royal Flush” arc, it’s the Justice Society of America villain Roulette vs. the JLA’s old foe, Amos Fortune. And the stakes are high as the two baddies pit the JLA against itself!”

The most consistent reading of those blurbs is that the originally solicited JLA #34 story actually starts in JLA #35 and is now three parts rather than two (more breathing room for DC?). That would then leave JLA #34 free for the last part of McDuffie’s story to be published in sequence.

Updated to add: Well Ed Benes has certainly done a cover for JLA #34 that looks like its the conclusion to McDuffie’s story.

Updated once again: Apparently, DC have released a corrected version of the listing for JLA #34, they just haven’t made it widely known and neither have they updated their own website:

In Justice League of America #34, written by Dwayne McDuffie with art by Eddy Barrows and Ruy Jose, the “Starbreaker” will conclude as the universe is once again threatened as a cosmic vampire shows his true self.

The story originally solicited for #34 will now appear in #35.

From the Comics Continuum. Nice to know those guys still get the scoop once in a while.

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Len Wein’s house fire

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By Jason Kirk / 07 April 2009 / Comic Books & Graphic Novels / 0 Comments

Harlan Ellison has reported that Len Wein‘s house has burnt down. Wein was not only the co-creator of Swamp Thing and Wolverine, but he also wrote some of the greatest Justice League stories of all time including the 1970s reintroduction of the Seven Soldiers of Victory. Thankfully Wein and his family are unharmed. Good luck to them as they rebuild.

No fund raising for them has been announced yet, Ellison made it clear that his friends are waiting until the Wein family have assessed the situation themselves. However, it occurs to me that June’s issue of JLA will be a fill-in issue by Len and there are plenty of trade collections on the shelves that he wrote. I’m sure he’d appreciate the royalties if you were so inclined to buy one of his DC works.

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