Writer

Judd Winick

Penciller

Joe Bennett

Inker

Jack Jadson and Ruy Jose

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

Travis Lanham

Editor

Rex Ogle and Brian Cunningham

Cover Artist

Dustin Nguyen

Variant Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Variant Cover Artist

Kevin Maguire

Booster Gold (screaming at Max): By filling graveyards?! This is how you “save the world”?!

Previously: Maxwell Lord (the disgraced former director of the JLI and Checkmake) had used his former JLI allies to frame and discredit Checkmate. He then seized control of whatever remained of it and then founded a new incarnation from a base/craft submerged in the seas off Japan. Booster Gold, Captain Atom, and the rest of JLI pursued Max for the kidnap of their comrade Jaime Reyes (the Blue Beetle), but they could not reach Max before he shot Reyes for attempting to escape.

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Writer

Judd Winick

Penciller

Fernando Dagnino

Inker

Raul Fernandez

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

Swands

Editor

Rex Ogle and Brian Cunningham

Cover Artist

Dustin Nguyen

Variant Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Variant Cover Artist

Kevin Maguire

Power Girl: You’re sending me away?
Fire: You did try to beat us all to death. That at least deserves a “time out.”
Ice: Max had her under his control. Like you when who tried to barbecue us.
Fire: But unlike you when you tried to freeze me.
Ice: Fair point.

Blue Beetle: I told you… I’d put you through a wall. Hombre.

Previously: Maxwell Lord’s plans are accelerating. He has kidnapped the Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) to study the alien technology in his armour. Beetle’s friends in the JLI traced Max to Tokyo, but before they could start looking for either Beetle or Max they were ambushed by Power Girl. She had been brainwashed into thinking that the JLI were her enemies, but the conditioning didn’t hold and she signed-up for fight against Max.

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Writer

Judd Winick

Penciller

Aaron Lopresti

Inker

Matt Ryan

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

John J. Hill

Editor

Rex Ogle and Brian Cunningham

Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Cover Artist

Aaron Lopresti

Variant Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Variant Cover Artist

Kevin Maguire

Maxwell Lord: Eventually, the badguys always go down. Time… the universe… our reality… always seems to keep score, and no matter how long a run the black hats might have the good guys will eventually knock them right down the mat. But, that’s the thing, Jaime… You keep thinking that I’m the bad guy.

Booster Gold: Welcome to the party. You want to help?
Power Girl: Yeah. Sign me up.

Previously: Maxwell Lord’s plan – whatever it may be – is accelerating. He set the Creature Commandos on the JLI as a distraction whilst he kidnapped the Blue Beetle. He arranged for Checkmate to be stood down by the United Nations so that it could be succeeded (in some as yet unknown way) by his New Checkmate. The rest of the JLI followed Max’s teleport trace to Tokyo, but they were blind-sided by Power Girl who attacked Captain Atom. She had come close to uncovering Max’s plans, but his mind control had clouded her mind.

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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 “I don’t know your name (but you look really familiar)”: Power Girl has traced the mysterious mastermind who has stolen her company’s assets to a hidden base in Antarctica. She was attacked by a raven-haired female kryptonian as she approached the base. The woman (we later find out she is named Divine) admits that she’s a near-clone of Power Girl (“I think my boss wanted to put his own spin on it.”) However, that’s all she is willing to admit before she attacks Power Girl. The two women brawl across the ice as Power Girl tries to get the upperhand. The fight crashes through the roof of the buried base revealing tank after tank of earlier failed clones. Their brawl is brought to a sudden halt when Maxwell Lord disables them both with red-sun radiation. He then has CRASH help Divine up and they escape before PG recovers. As she lies on the ground she sees the Kord Industries logo and her memories of the Blue Beetle and Maxwell Lord come flooding back. An explosion incinerates the lab, the tanks, and any evidence, but it isn’t strong enough to hurt the recovering Power Girl. She pulls herself out of the crater and tells Nicco that she finally knows/remembers that Max is behind everything.

Continuity: Maxwell Lord created Divine by bargaining for Captain Marvel’s arch-foe Dr Sivana’s help. His speech implies he’s after the energy processing abilities of Kryptonian cells and that Divine is just a side-product. In the normal DC Universe Power Girl is a parallel universe version of Supergirl. However, in the DC Animated Universe of Justice League Unlimited a version of Power Girl called Galatea is a clone of Supergirl created by an evil version of the Cadmus Project. Divine parallels that clone origin. PG got her first look at Max in Power Girl #15, but she didn’t recognise him. She told Batman (Dick) about that in Justice League: Generation Lost #10 and they came within a whisker of remembering Max before his post-hypnotic blocks made them forget again.

Opinion: “As much as I like a good cat fight” says Max and this is quite a good cat fight. That’s what I like about PG -  the fights aren’t watered down just because she’s a superheroine (her battles are probably rougher than most male superheroes battles). Basri’s art is great as never really descends into a the T&A route that artists of the Ed Benes school would have taken. As always I think  Sunny Glo and Jessica Kholinne’s delicate and muted colouring is a large part of the success of this book. It just doesn’t look like most of the other books out there. It has a definite tone, look, and feel that is brilliantly its own. Divine has the potential to be a very interesting character (every superhero needs their own evil clone).

Writer

Judd Winick

Penciller

Joe Bennett

Inker

Jack Jadson and Ruy Jose

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

Swands

Editor

Rex Ogle and Brian Cunningham

Cover Artist

Dustin Nguyen

Variant Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Variant Cover Artist

Kevin Maguire

Maxwell Lord: What the @#$% do you mean, “Who is Wonder Woman?!”

Booster Gold: I’m sorry that Max framed you and I’m sickened and horrified that that piece of crap murdered a thousand people on this road to whatever the @#S% this road is — BUT, YOU DON’T GET TO KILL HIM!

We are the good guys, Nate. And sometimes being the good guys sucks. Sometimes it means you’ve gotta eat it for a while until you’ve won. And the future is malleable! I know that better than anyone. You changed things just by coming back from whatever mass hazard, post-apocalyptic, cranky Power Girl version of Earth you got puked up on!

But, no! You don’t get to kill Max Lord! We capture him and he gets stuck in a concrete hole with 85 power dampers strapped to every appendage — and he rots there! But before we do that — I’M GOING TO BEAT EVERY LAST LOVING @#$% OUT OF HIM. And you are not going to deprive me of that! Got it!?!

Previously: Maxwell Lord, the corrupt ex-Checkmate and JLI director, was killed by Wonder Woman when he refused to release a mind controlled Superman. The White Lantern/Life Entity later resurrected Max and obliged him to murder the superhero Magog. Max’s life is now his own again and he has turned his attention back to the woman who killed him. Captain Atom has become aware of a potential war-torn future created by Max’s murder of Wonder Woman.

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Writer

Judd Winick

Penciller

Joe Bennett

Inker

Jack Jadson and Ruy Jose

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

Sal Cipriano

Editor

Rex Ogle and Brian Cunningham

Cover Artist

Cliff Chiang

Variant Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Variant Cover Artist

Kevin Maguire

Captain Atom: I surrender.
Magog: I know, man! I heard you the first thirty times you said you wanted to throw in the towel! I just don’t give a @#$%!!

When he was a boy David Reid’s grandfather told him that “in combat, the chain of command is everything. You do as you’re told. [...] But sometimes, [...] you just gotta do what’s right.” Twenty years later and Lance Corporal David Reid went through a nightmarish-transformation as the herald of a dying god, but he rebelled against his wound-be master – broke the chain of command – and defeated him. Now as the superhero Magog he has been drafted back into military service by Maxwell Lord (whom he believes is Checkmate’s Black King) who has given him orders to kill Captain Atom.

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Writer

Judd Winick

Penciller

Aaron Lopresti

Inker

Matt Ryan

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

Sal Cipriano

Editor

Rex Ogle and Brian Cunningham

Cover Artist

Cliff Chiang

Variant Cover Artist

Ryan Sook, Joel Gomez, and Fernando Pasarin

Variant Cover Colourist

Randy Mayor and Carrie Strachan

Rocket Red (shouting): NO — it is you who –
Fire (quietly): Time to make an exit.
Rocket Red (quietly): Already? I vas just warming up.
Fire (quietly): Gavril!
Rocket Red (quietly): Okay. Wrapping it up.

Blue Beetle: Screw it! The cat’s out of the bag and ripping up the furniture!!

The Justice League International (JLI) has decided to go on the assault against Maxwell Lord. Jaime Reyes, the current Blue Beetle, traced Max’s radio signal to Checkmate Castle and Fire, a former Checkmate Knight, planned the break in. The team disguised themselves as dissident Rocket Reds and broke into the Castle hoping to reach the Nest – the omnipresent surveillance centre which would have recorded Max’s presence if he was there. They managed to reach the Nest, but immediately found themselves surrounded by the Black King’s soldiers.

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Writer

Judd Winick

Penciller

Joe Bennett

Inker

Jack

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

Travis Lanham

Editor

Rex Ogle and Terri Cunningham

Cover Artist

Cliff Chiang

Variant Cover Artist

Ryan Sook, Joel Gomez, and Fernando Pasarin

Variant Cover Colourist

Randy Mayor and Carrie Strachan

Rocket Red: Stand down, Pigs! Lapdogs to western whore-mongers! Stand down or perish!!

Beetle: What is that?

Booster: Aw crap.

Skeets: I would concur, Sir. Aw crap.

The lines have been drawn in the conflict between the recently reformed JLI and their former administrator Maxwell Lord. He has convinced the world that he never existed and has manipulated the JLI to undermine their credibility. They have sworn to find him after Captain Atom visited a possible future and saw a world devastated by a war that they believe Max was responsible for.

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