By Alan Burnett, Dwayne McDuffie, Ed Benes & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-051-2
The fourth volume of the latest Justice League of America incarnation (collecting issues #17-22 of the monthly comic) sees a changing of the creative guard as the always impressive Alan Burnett splits the scripting duties with equally impeccable Dwayne McDuffie to tie-in the Worlds Greatest Heroes to a company-wide storyline that wasn’t quite a braided-mega-crossover but was more than a shared plotline.
The graphic novel (or album or trade paperback collection: take your pick) is a wonderful vehicle for a complete reading experience in an industry and art-form that has always suffered from its own greatest strength – vitality and immediacy due to being periodically published.
Simply stated: you can generate huge enthusiasm for your product if it comes out frequently (or constantly), and more so if your product shares a storyline with a congruent product. That simple maxim gave early Marvel an insurmountable advantage in the 1960s and DC, being slow to catch on is still playing Catch-Up in the cross-selling stakes.
Unfortunately that advantage becomes a hazard once these parallel sagas are bundled up into what ought to be cohesive one-off packages, i.e. books, as inevitably backstory and initiating events have to be ignored, précised or included. One day all periodical material will be downloadable on demand and I’ll go back to reviews of actual comics…
The epic in question here is Salvation Run: a miniseries which spilled over most prominently into Catwoman (see both Catwoman: Crime Pays and Catwoman: the Long Road Home), although the build-up, which saw a large number of DC super-villains seemingly vanish, was featured in a quite a number of disparate DC titles.
The chapters here were divided into the lead feature ‘Sanctuary’ parts 1-3, by Burnett, Ed Benes and inkers Sandra Hope, Mariah Benes & Ruy José, with McDuffie providing captivating character-based vignettes, before assuming full writing chores for the last two tales in this volume.
It all kicks off when a desperate gang of super criminals smashes into the JLA’s headquarters and promptly surrenders, requesting asylum. Investigation reveals that villains from the most pathetic to the most powerful are being “disappeared†and even incarceration in the League’s dungeon on the Moon is preferable to the unknown fate of their fellows.
When hard-line political animal Amanda Waller and her pet penal battalion The Suicide Squad turn up demanding the heroes hand over the bad-guys the shocking secret comes out: the US government has had enough of metahuman threats and is rounding them up, without benefit of Due Process, and deporting them to another world from which they can never return. Moreover, she’s equally prepared to trample the JLA’s human rights to get what – and who – she wants…
Full of spectacular action and telling metaphor this yarn has plenty of surprises and for best effect should be read before any of the above cited collections, as it has no real conclusion, only lots of climaxes…
McDuffie’s first tale is ‘Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen…’ illustrated by Jon Boy Meyers & Serge LaPointe, wherein Vixen reveals a secret that might get her booted off the team to Red Arrow, Red Tornado and Green Lantern, and ‘Meanwhile, Back at Owl Creek Bridge…’, (Meyers & Mark Irwin) sees the Tornado – currently bodiless and inhabiting the team’s computer system – make a decision that could save or end his “lifeâ€. Both these short stories lay the threads for upcoming longer tales.
After the conclusion of ‘Sanctuary’ McDuffie and Ethan van Sciver pit the (Wally West) Flash and Wonder Woman against the alien insect Queen Bee Zazzala in ‘Back up to Speed’ and the book closes focusing on the Human Flame, as he joins a bevy of baddies feted by the villainous Libra in a prequel to Final Crisis. ‘The Gathering Crisis’ is illustrated by Carlos Pacheco & Jesus Merino.
Even though possibly no more than a bunch of interludes and add-ons, the sheer quality of the work collected here elevates this book above the average superhero sock-fest, and if you are a fan of the “Big Events†the room to see characters breathe and move here is a bonus of unparalleled worth.
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