Rollcall | the Captain's JLA blog

JLA roster revealed in BN #3 advert

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.

Blackest Night JLA Bodycount

It’s no great secret that the Blackest Night event focuses on the revolving door policy to death and resurrection in the DC Universe. After reading BN#1 its rather obvious that it is as much a JLA event as a Green Lantern event.

Consider that every single founding member of the Justice League has died at least once and has been resurrected at least once. Admittedly Batman (had his heart stopped), the Martian Manhunter (shifted his mind into a severed limb), and Aquaman (went off to fight gods) were killed off and then resurrected as part of storylines in their own titles, but they were still dead and now are dead again. This doesn’t even include the storyline from Joe Kelly’s run where an Atlantean Queen killed the entire JLA roster for a dozen of so issues.

Who's been dead in the Silver Age JLA - click to enlarge

The above picture shows the roll call of the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Justice League with a mark over a character if he/she has died at least once. There appears to be an inverse refrigerator effect at work. Out of the six female Leaguers only two (33%) have been killed off where as of the fourteen male League thirteen (93%) have been killed off.

What will be interesting to see is how those characters who have never died, never been in death’s clutches, fare in the Blackest Night compared to those characters who have previously escaped death.