The entirety of Jurgens' run was collected in two volumes rebranded Superman and Justice League America, and apparently DC is doing the same with Vado's run, giving Wonder Woman top-billing in an apparent attempt to goose interest in a collection of these issues, which, if not the absolute nadir of the franchise, is certainly well into a valley between the peaks of the Giffen/DeMatteis run and the Grant Morrison.
The new title is more or less meaningless, just as that of the previous two collections was (as I mentioned before, Superman is barely in Superman and Justice League America Vol. 2, that's just a better title than The Second Half of Dan Jurgens' Justice League America). In fact, Wonder Woman took over leadership of this Justice League in Superman and.. Vol. 2, and she doesn't exactly play a bigger-than-average role in these comics.
Not only are we wading pretty deep into the era where DC was trying to keep the Giffen/DeMatteis conception of the League going past its expiration date at this point, but this book makes for an interesting read in 2017, given the fact that Vado is so clearly writing in the "old", pre-trade market, soap-operatic model of superhero comics. That is, rather than writing story arcs as part of a bigger, overarching storyline, Vado picks up the cast right where it was, making few if any real changes, and gives each of those characters a conflict of their own to wrestle with from issue to issue, major conflicts moving from the background to the foreground and necessary.
At this point, the League is still operating out of the new New York headquarters from their Jurgens run, with Max Lord essentially their boss and Oberon his assistant. Wonder Woman is the field leader of a team that consists of mainstays Blue Beetle, Guy Gardner (still wearing Sinestro's yellow ring), Booster Gold, Fire and Ice, plus Jurgens additions Maxima, Bloodwynd and their newest recruit, The Ray.
Of the long-timers, they are still all somewhere between reeling and sidelined by their fight with Doomsday, the one that killed the recently-resurrected Superman (the destruction of Coast City comes up in conversation at one point, and when Hal Jordan of Justice League Europe--Or was it International at this point?--shows up for a few panels, he's wearing his arm in a sling). Booster Gold's costume is still shredded, so he is wearing a big, goofy suit of armor that looks like a futuristic football uniform to me; Ted Kord has hung up his Beetle costume and devoted himself to lab work, leery of jumping back into the sorts of superhero fights that had landed him in a coma; Fire is still powerless; and Ice has left the team, but not the book, as she returns to her hidden ice kingdom.*
The foregrounded plots involve one in which Wonder Woman leading the team to secure an airport in a fictional war-torn country with an assist from original Flash Jay Garrick (who sadly doesn't stick around too long), only to face off against Dreamslayer and the "new" Extremists. Then she extends an offer of sanctuary to a pair of wanted space criminals who crash land on Earth, leading to a tense stand-off with Captain Atom and his '90s-looking back-up, The Peacemakers, who are working on behalf of President Bill Clinton. Finally, the team heads to the hidden kingdom Ice hails from, where her similarly-powered brother has initiated a hostile take over, and plans to march on northern Europe with the help of mystical weapons and the patronage of a shadowy threat which, if I remember correctly, will end up being the driving threat of the upcoming multi-book crossover event, "Judgement Day."
This collection has a nice new cover by Tom Grummet...unless DC found a nice Grummet drawing of this team in a drawer somewhere and repurposed it here. The bulk of the interiors are drawn by Kevin West, who arrives with the third issue of the collection, originally inked by Rick Burchett. West's style is quite strong, and pretty much perfect for the book at this point in its existence, as he draws figures as well as Jurgens--and, in fact, some of his lay-outs look so Jurgens-like it looks as if Jurgens himself was doing breakdowns--but he also has a strong facility for facial expressions, and several close-ups reminded me of the work of Kevin Maguire, the Giffen/DeMatteis team's original artistic collaborator.
The influence of the era can be seen slowly creeping into the book, visually as well as in the scripting, as when Blue Beetle finally puts his costume back on it looks a lot like Todd MacFarlane's Spider-Man, Booster armors up and Fire and Ice both get new, much more-revealing costumes.
The rest of the art in the book comes from pencil artist Mike Collins (two issues), Chris Hunter (one issue of Guy Gardner scripted by Chuck Dixon, which is a direct tie-in to JLA) and the art team of penciler Greg LaRocque and a trio of inkers, who draw Justice League America Annual #7, which is placed at the end of the collection (That's from the "Bloodlines" event, and introduces New Blood Terrorsmith, who has a neat look and a neat power, but never really went anywhere after this, save a Showcase appearance...there are three even less interesting and less appealing New Bloods who show up as well to help the League fight him).
The overall quality of the book is rocky, and despite its title, it's definitely for fans of the Justice League, not of Wonder Woman. That is, if you were picking this up specifically because of it's title, chances are you're going to be sorely disappointed. The art and story actually age pretty okay, although Gardner's lewd come-ons seem incredibly weird today, and it's hard to understand why Wonder Woman or Maxima aren't constantly throwing him through walls or breaking his bones. This Wonder Woman is a lot more patient and less violent than more modern takes, I guess.
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As I noted when writing a little preview of this for Comics Alliance, back when there still was a Comics Alliance (sniff), this particular volume contains 1.) The Ray on the Justice League, 2.) The Justice League fighting a version of The Extremists and 3.) Terrorsmith, so one can't help but imagine a young Steve Orlando read and internalized these issues, given that he just launched a new comic book series called Justice League of America featuring The Ray on the the team, their first foes are a version of The Extremists and future solicitations reveal that Terrorsmith will be making, like, his third appearance ever.
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Amazon has an entry for an October volume of Wonder Woman and Justice League of America that collects the series through issues #91. That's only six more issues, and considering that those six include part 1, part 4 and an "aftermath" of "Judgement Day," I have to assume parts 2 and 3 of "Judgement Day" will be in there as well. (Vado also wrote Justice League America Annual #8, but given that it's an "Elseworlds" annual I imagine arguments could be made for and against collecting it; the best argument for being maybe that Evan Dorkin draws a back-up in it called "The O Squad," in which all of the many, many JLA villains whose names end in "O" team-up).
Then there's one chapter of the the Zero Hour tie-in that ran across the various League titles by Christopher Priest (The story introducing Triumph, which...well, I don't know if that would get collected with Triumph or Priest's (excellent) run on Justice League Task Force or...what. Priest wrote JLA Annual #9, part of the weird-ish "Legends of The Dead Earth", Elseworlds-esque themed annuals).
Then the Gerard Jones-written run begins, the last before DC cancels the whole Justice League franchise, clearing the decks for Grant Morrison, Howard Porter and John Dell's JLA. That lasts 23 issues, and if DC ends up collecting them--and at this point, they've come so far, why not?--I'm curious if they will keep the the Wonder Woman... and title for volumes 3 and 4 and maybe 5 or...what, exactly.
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| Say, is this temporary, one-arc line-up the closest a League comes to The Big Seven between the end of the Detroit Era and JLA...? |
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| Extreeeeeme! I do like Amazing Man a lot, though, and was sorry to see that his death was treated as a real, permanent death. That guy should totally be on the Justice League right now. |
*Did DC miss a huge opportunity by not pushing Ice, a superhero who is also an ice-powered princess, a few years ago, in the wake of 2013's Frozen movie? Like, if they were reinventing, rebooting and relaunching all their characters anyway, it occurred to me while reading this volume that in many ways Ice is basically just Elsa, only a superhero.
I just got this from an Amazon pre-order, so I'll see if I can't add to this discussion. Amazon got the list of issues wrong, which makes sense, as they now have a listing for Wonder Woman and the Justice League America volume 2, which seems to have a mistake in that it says that it will print issues 84-91. As Issues 84 and 85 have been reprinted already, they are probably placeholders until better information on the "Judgement Day" reprints is available. (Side note: I'm a little upset and incredibly disheartened that the "Breakdowns" cross-over finale to the Giffen and Maguire run has seemingly been canceled. I was hoping that it would do well and get DC to finally finish collecting the rest of the series.)
ReplyDeleteMy major complaint with the book is that issue 85 has pages printed out-of-order, messing up the narrative flow. I don't know if this is in all the versions, or mine is screwed up, or if that was how it was originally printed and they are preserving the awful reading experience, but as it is the finale to Ice's storyline and the major story arc for the book, it really detracts from the quality of the book.
Besides the printing mess-up though, I found I really enjoyed this, more-so than vol. 2 of Jurgens' run, which suffered from an odd alternate reality multi-part story focusing on the Atom. Here the characterizations are mostly on point, especially the (spoiler) real Guy's blustery but concerned attitude towards his teammates, and the interactions between Booster and Beetle. I found myself enjoying the Ray more than I thought I might, with his role as the unsure rookie of the team, and I thought that Jay Garrick's role as a mentor figure towards him was well-done. (I don't know if they share that role in other books from this time. These are the only 90s comics I'm reading.)
Finally, I must say that the diverse characterizations and ages of heroes present in this book, from the aggressive Guy to the grand-fatherly Garrick make this book a more interesting read than those milksops Jordan or Allen who DC are pushing on us now. And I agree that DC missed a huge opportunity to bring back Ice! I'm excited and curious about the next volume of WW and JLA, although I fear the quality must eventually dip and that I will lose interest as Michael,Ted, and Tora leave the book over the next few installments.
I apologize for such a long response, but this was the only in-depth review I could find of the book to respond to. Thank you!
Ask and you shall receive. Never thought I'd see a Justice League Task Force collection ever, but it only has to avoid post-solicitation cancellation for a few more months. I'm hoping it sells well enough to earn a second volume; the title has a totally different premise after that, but the fact that Christopher Priest wrote it, currently making headlines on Deathstroke, should be in its favor.
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