JLofA Switcheroo

Back in July, I posted a short piece guessing the members of Brad Meltzer's new Justice League of America based on the partially blacked out cover of Justice League of America #2, and saying that everyone who read it owed me $1 if I was 100-percent correct. Well, JLoA #2 was finally released this week (it's the first one posted above) and, as you can see, the League is out of the bag. You can also see that DC cheated, coloring the bow differently to throw us off the trail, and positioning Black Lighting and Black Canary differently; even Hawkgirl's original outline seemed blockier, suggesting Hawkman.

Now, I'm not going to get worked up over the changes or DC's attempts to deceive readers, mostly because it was a fun guessing game and I was pretty close anyway. Of my original guesses, it looks like I had eight out of ten. Sure, I guessed Green Arrow Connor Hawke instead of Arsenal, but I'll give myself that one, since DC cheated by mis-coloring the bow. Hawkgirl's original shape did seem to suggest Hawkman, due to its size and the shape of the helmet, but I'll give that one to DC, and therefore you don't owe me a $1 after all.

But what's most interesting about DC's switcheroo is that they apparently neglected to tell cover artist Michael Turner who was actually the team as well. Check out Arsenal in that picture. He's wearing a version of his "Red Arrow" costume, the one he sported during his appearances in Dan Jurgens' Teen Titans, the first issue of his own miniseries and in Kingdom Come. This is the costume he was wearing on both versions of the cover for JLoA #1 that he appeared on too, except in the previous JLoA covers his beltbuckle had a big "R" on it, either for "Red Arrow," or "Roy" or, possibly, "R-senal." But on this cover, Turner gives him a "G"-shaped belt buckle, like the kind Green Arrow wears.

It looks like in the process of fooling readers, DC made a pretty glaring error on the cover of one of their more popular comic books. It just goes to show that it never pays to lie.