By Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire & Joe Rubinstein (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0305-4
There’s a little micro-resurgence these days for the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Justice League International incarnations (see our review in the archives section – ISBN: 978-1-84576-787-7) – so its no surprise that DC reassembled the creative team for one last hurrah (which typically turned into two) in 2003 with a surprisingly good mini-series that had the same tone and lots of those beloved old jokes.
Years after the JLI disbanded manipulative entrepreneur Maxwell Lord has a “Blues Brothers†moment and gets the band back together. He wants Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Captain Atom, Ralph-Elongated Man-Dibny and his wife Sue, Fire, the Green Lantern dog G’nort and new addition Mary Marvel to become people’s heroes working out of a store-front deep in an inner city war-zone.
Obviously Max has an unscrupulous agenda and the menaces of Roulette’s superhero pit-fighting arena (serious), a bunch meta-powered gang-bangers (not so much) and Manga Khan (not at all) provide the action components but the real delight and raison d’être is the comedic interplay between the characters.
Giffen, DeMatteis, Maguire and Rubinstein are on top form in this fun and thrill stuffed reprise of lighter, brighter comic days that occurs just before the angsty traumas of Infinite Crisis and the interminable mega-epics that followed it. If you need a break from manic melodrama this is the one for you – and so is the sequel (I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Justice League ISBN: 978-1-4012-0478-5).
© 2003, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.