{"id":4865,"date":"2010-04-20T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2010-04-20T06:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=4865"},"modified":"2010-04-19T18:25:29","modified_gmt":"2010-04-19T18:25:29","slug":"justice-league-of-america-second-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2010\/04\/20\/justice-league-of-america-second-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice League of America: Second Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Dwayne McDuffie<\/strong>, Ed Benes<\/strong> & various (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-84856-253-0<\/p>\n

By the time of the stories in this collection (issues #22-26 of the most recent incarnation of the World’s Greatest Superhero team) writer Dwayne McDuffie has his feet comfortably under the table and begins to play with the secondary characters that always offer the most narrative opportunity in such large congregations of major and minor stars.<\/p>\n

Beginning with ‘The Widening Gyre’<\/em>, illustrated by Ed Benes, he also cleans up some of the longer-running plot threads as the Red Tornado finally gets a new body, after months of inhabiting the JLA computers after being destroyed by the killer android Amazo (see Justice League of America: the Tornado’s Path<\/a><\/strong>). Sadly, whilst his relationship with his human wife and child looks set to resume, the tempestuous affair between Red Arrow and Hawkgirl is rapidly spinning out of control and beast-empowered heroine Vixen has finally come clean to her team-mates about her out-of-control abilities, Amazo reveals he is neither gone nor forgotten\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Once more assuming control of the Tornado’s new body in ‘Things Fall Apart’<\/em> the parasitic automaton resumes its programmed task of destroying the JLA, but as it again crashes to defeat in ‘The Blood-Dimmed Tid<\/em>e’ (this chapter illustrated by Alan Goldman, Prentis Rollins, Rodney Ramos & Derek Fridolfs), Vixen and guest-star Animal Man realise that something is terribly amiss with their powers, origins and even reality itself\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘The Best Lack All Conviction’<\/em> (with art from Benes, Doug Mahnke, Darick Robertson, Shane Davis, Ian Churchill, Ivan Reis, Christian Alamy, Rob Stull, & Joe Prado) finds one faction of the team tracking down Amazo’s creator whilst the other half are drawn into a reality-warping battle with the trickster god Kwaku Anansi. The mythical creator of all stories claims to have designed Vixen (and Animal Man’s) abilities, and now forces the malfunctioning warrior into curing her current maladies – even if she has to die in the process.<\/p>\n

With her comrades re-imagined into a plethora of disturbing alternate incarnations Vixen battles to overcome her own failings and rescue \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Real World\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from a creature utterly beyond good and evil, and with a particularly unpleasant method of teaching salutary lessons in the climactic ‘Spiritus Mundi’<\/em>, a impressive and quirky conclusion from McDuffie and Benes that proves that you don’t need A-List stars to tell great stories\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Sleek, glossy, action-packed and leavened with great characterisation and sharp one-liners, the JLA<\/strong>‘s continuing adventures are still among the very best modern superhero sagas around. If you’re not a fan yet, reading these books will swiftly and permanently alter that reality\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n