Unlike the rather disconnected fill-in arcs that preceded it, the story, which ran in issues #107-114, was built on stories that preceded it. Not within the pages of JLA proper, but in other, related books with "JLA" in the title.
It was a fairly direct sequel to Busiek's own 2003 JLA/Avengers series, for example, and it further built on characters and ideas from Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's 2000 original graphic novel JLA: Earth 2, which introduced the then-modern version of the League's old evil opposites, The Crime Syndicate of America.
That said, "Syndicate Rules" is well written enough that I don't think one necessarily needs to read "homework" in order to follow and enjoy it. Certainly its original audience was likely already very familiar with JLA/Avengers and JLA: Earth 2, and while anyone trying to read this story for the first time in 2025 might have some trouble getting their hands on that DC/Marvel crossover, the story makes sense without one necessarily having read it, I think.
The necessary events are explained in the dialogue, even if Busiek obviously can't write the word "Avengers" here. Reading the crossover is really no more necessary than having read, say, the stories that introduced older characters like The Construct or the residents of Qward, who also appear in this story. (Although, having re-read JLA/Avengers not long before re-reading this, I think it does add a depth to "Syndicate Rules", and makes it feel relevant and, well, "important", something super-comics readers certainly like their comics to be).
Now, if you did read JLA/Avengers, you know that the Crime Syndicate of Amerika (with a "k"), which Morrison situated on the Earth of the anti-matter universe, since post-Crisis their home universe Earth-3 no longer existed, were in the midst of attacking Qward when Krona destroyed that universe. During the events of the series, the DC and Marvel Universes were pretty heavily messed with, ultimately being erased and re-created once the heroes managed to set things right.
If you didn't read that, don't worry. Early in this arc, Busiek essentially retells those events from the CSA's perspective, rewinding to show readers what lead up to the CSA finding and attacking Qward, and then what happened after their universe was "rebooted." The fact that it was rebooted is the main driver of the arc's plot.
The story actually begins in the pages of JLA Secret Files 2004 #1, with a ten-page story set on the CSA's Earth, wherein the villains conquer the last remaining country that had been resisting them, Modora.
If you didn't read that, don't worry. Early in this arc, Busiek essentially retells those events from the CSA's perspective, rewinding to show readers what lead up to the CSA finding and attacking Qward, and then what happened after their universe was "rebooted." The fact that it was rebooted is the main driver of the arc's plot.
The story actually begins in the pages of JLA Secret Files 2004 #1, with a ten-page story set on the CSA's Earth, wherein the villains conquer the last remaining country that had been resisting them, Modora.
Then, bored, they start looking for new horizons to conquer. (The short is notable for introducing the CSA's enemies, The Justice Underground, featuring heroic versions of regular DCU villains. One of them, the good guy version of The Riddler, would end up reappearing in Busiek and company's 2008-2009 series Trinity, which I now plan on revisiting in the near-ish future too).
In the pages of JLA proper, "Syndicate Rules" starts off with a leisurely pace that is unusual for the title, something that helps, I think, the eventually collected version of the story read more like a true graphic novel than simply a collection of a serially-produced story arc; it is, despite the foundation borrowed from earlier works and references to the goings-on throughout the DC Universe, quite complete unto itself.
Much of the current JLA (Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern John Stewart, The Atom and Aquaman, the latter of whom seems to have officially rejoined sometime before the arc begins) are off in space, studying the "cosmic egg", the baby universe that Krona was trapped in at the end of JLA/Avengers.
Much of the current JLA (Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern John Stewart, The Atom and Aquaman, the latter of whom seems to have officially rejoined sometime before the arc begins) are off in space, studying the "cosmic egg", the baby universe that Krona was trapped in at the end of JLA/Avengers.
Meanwhile, back in their lunar Watchtower base, Martian Manhunter and The Flash are engaged in the routine maintenance apparently assigned to two Leaguers on the third Thursday of each month.
Personally, I love this sort of day-in-the-life, behind-the-scenes business, which here includes checking in with various parties (like Shiloh Norman, the security chief of The Slab, as seen in 2001's Joker: Last Laugh) and making sure the containment system set up for The Construct is still working as it should be.
Personally, I love this sort of day-in-the-life, behind-the-scenes business, which here includes checking in with various parties (like Shiloh Norman, the security chief of The Slab, as seen in 2001's Joker: Last Laugh) and making sure the containment system set up for The Construct is still working as it should be.
Busiek has chosen the best odd couple for such scenes, as the meticulous J'onn has dedicated his whole life and career to Justice League stuff, while The Flash has his own life (and own book) that he's eager to get back to, and his super-speed impatience leads to him to doing origami, crossword puzzles and cleaning the whole HQ between their various assigned tasks.
This first issue ends with The Syndicate in aGreen Lantern Power Ring bubble, looking in on the Watchtower. Notably, the spikey blond-haired, visor-wearing Power Ring, meant to be the evil equivalent of Green Lantern Kyle Rayner from Earth-2 and that Secret Files story, is here replaced by what looks like John Stewart's evil opposite, with a smooth bald head and a goatee, the true mark of a bad guy from a mirror dimension.
In the second issue, we flashback to sixth months ago on the Earth of the anti-matter universe, where Busiek reminds us of the characters of the CSA, their relationships and the nature of their world. When Power Ring finds a new planet, Qward, they set out to conquer it.
Busiek and Garney devote six pages of this issue to introducing various characters on Qward and the particulars of their culture, something it's kind of impossible to imagine, say, Morrison doing (Had Morrison wrote this story, one imagines it would have only been about three issues, maybe four tops).
This will tun out to be important groundwork, though, as the Qwardians will be major players in the story, and Busiek splits the focus between them, the Syndicate and The League; sure, two of those groups might be villainous ones, but Busiek gets us inside their heads and allows us to see their motivations and machinations in a way that is highly unusual for this particular title.
Anyway, as seen in JLA/Avengers, the Syndicate invade Qward, but the battle is interrupted , the colored panels on one page seeming to drain of color and become simple black lines on white paper as they shatter like glass, only to reassemble on the next page, which replays a scene from earlier in the issue, only instead of the Kyle-inspired Power Ring flying into their base with news of the discovery of Qward, it is now the John-inspired one.
This first issue ends with The Syndicate in a
In the second issue, we flashback to sixth months ago on the Earth of the anti-matter universe, where Busiek reminds us of the characters of the CSA, their relationships and the nature of their world. When Power Ring finds a new planet, Qward, they set out to conquer it.
Busiek and Garney devote six pages of this issue to introducing various characters on Qward and the particulars of their culture, something it's kind of impossible to imagine, say, Morrison doing (Had Morrison wrote this story, one imagines it would have only been about three issues, maybe four tops).
This will tun out to be important groundwork, though, as the Qwardians will be major players in the story, and Busiek splits the focus between them, the Syndicate and The League; sure, two of those groups might be villainous ones, but Busiek gets us inside their heads and allows us to see their motivations and machinations in a way that is highly unusual for this particular title.
Anyway, as seen in JLA/Avengers, the Syndicate invade Qward, but the battle is interrupted , the colored panels on one page seeming to drain of color and become simple black lines on white paper as they shatter like glass, only to reassemble on the next page, which replays a scene from earlier in the issue, only instead of the Kyle-inspired Power Ring flying into their base with news of the discovery of Qward, it is now the John-inspired one.
In the next issue, Power Ring's power ring and the Syndicate's "Analytiscope" come to the same conclusion: The universe was destroyed and rebuilt some months ago, with several revisions, like this Power Ring's presence.
The epicenter of the cataclysm? Volthoom, the entity in the ring, says it was "Far from here...Source, however, is familiar: Positive-matter universe." (Though specifically referring to the events of JLA/Avengers, DC's multiverse/reality has been reset so many times between Crisis on Infinite Earths and, I don't know what the latest was, Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths maybe?, that this story probably reads particularly evergreen in 2025. The universes are always being reset now, it seems, and so here we get a story of the characters realizing it, and thinking of themselves as the victims of continuity, setting out to do something about it...and, I should note, a few years before Superboy-Prime would debut in Infinite Crisis with a similar motivation and agenda).
And so the CSA decides to visit the JLA's Earth, investigating it in secret (This, amusingly, they do by wearing the costumes of their opposites on the League, attempting to play hero in the DCU, as out of their nature as it may be to do so, so that Ultraman poses as Superman, Johnny Quick as The Flash, and so on).
Meanwhile, the Qwardians get a new, more pro-active and war-like leader who wants to seek out the colorful, super-powered enemies that had attacked them. But first, they must find and claim a legendary sentient mega-weapon known as The Void Hound, a planet-razing horror the capabilities of which Busiek lays out in a 10-panel sequence that reads a bit like poetry over some vague images of galactic destruction from the art team. Thus equipped, they then head for Earth, too.
Eventually, the CSA fights the JLA—which, here, means the Big Seven plus Plastic Man—and they actually send the League packing, even with the intervention of Cyborg and Beast Boy, who happen to appear because the fight was set in the Teen Titans' then hometown of San Francisco (Refeshingly, Busiek makes full use of the DCU setting throughout, even name-dropping the title super-team from his own interesting but short-lived series, The Power Company).
Meanwhile, the Qwardians get a new, more pro-active and war-like leader who wants to seek out the colorful, super-powered enemies that had attacked them. But first, they must find and claim a legendary sentient mega-weapon known as The Void Hound, a planet-razing horror the capabilities of which Busiek lays out in a 10-panel sequence that reads a bit like poetry over some vague images of galactic destruction from the art team. Thus equipped, they then head for Earth, too.
Eventually, the CSA fights the JLA—which, here, means the Big Seven plus Plastic Man—and they actually send the League packing, even with the intervention of Cyborg and Beast Boy, who happen to appear because the fight was set in the Teen Titans' then hometown of San Francisco (Refeshingly, Busiek makes full use of the DCU setting throughout, even name-dropping the title super-team from his own interesting but short-lived series, The Power Company).
Owlman points out the true significance of their victory:
Don't you see? Their world's been changed. Our world's been changed. We just took them apart on their home turf.The essential difference between our universes, that kept us from ever being able to triumph here-- --it's GONE.
He's talking about an aspect about their respective worlds that Morrison verbalized in Earth-2. The Justice League, obviously, always ends up winning, right? But on the CSA's world, the old Earth-3, now rechristened "Earth-2", the opposite is true, and evil always wins. This was because the Justice League were good guys, who naturally always triumph in superhero comics, and the villains from an "opposite" world must always win there, if that world is truly opposite.
That was just the nature of superhero comics conventions, of course, but Morrison stated it as if it were some kind of law of physics, and Busiek picks up on the concept here, positing that when the DC Universe was last rebooted, it changed that one particular law, maybe (If this all sounds more goofy than meta to you, it's worth noting that Busiek has Ultraman continually note his skepticism about the "essential difference.")
Anyway, as the story moves on towards its climax and the League finds themselves facing and invasion from the CSA and the looming threat of the Qwardian Void Hound, they call in their reserves and split into three teams.
Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and a ship-bound Martian Manhunter are joined by Faith, Captain Marvel and Power Girl in a deep-space assault on the seemingly unstoppable Void Hound, reinforcements coming in the form of New Gods (and former Leaguers) Orion, Lightray and Big Barda.
That was just the nature of superhero comics conventions, of course, but Morrison stated it as if it were some kind of law of physics, and Busiek picks up on the concept here, positing that when the DC Universe was last rebooted, it changed that one particular law, maybe (If this all sounds more goofy than meta to you, it's worth noting that Busiek has Ultraman continually note his skepticism about the "essential difference.")
Anyway, as the story moves on towards its climax and the League finds themselves facing and invasion from the CSA and the looming threat of the Qwardian Void Hound, they call in their reserves and split into three teams.
Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and a ship-bound Martian Manhunter are joined by Faith, Captain Marvel and Power Girl in a deep-space assault on the seemingly unstoppable Void Hound, reinforcements coming in the form of New Gods (and former Leaguers) Orion, Lightray and Big Barda.
Aquaman leads much of Justice League Elite against the CSA in Tibet, where the evildoers are attempting to set up a base for themselves (As far as I know, this is the only appearance of the JLE as a team outside of their own book proper, making it a rare acknowledgement that the book actually took place in the DCU at all, really; Manitou Raven is missing, but I'm not certain if he had been killed off at this point yet or not).
And, finally, Batman leads a team consisting of Plastic Man, Black Canary, Hawkman and Green Arrow Oliver Queen to the CSA home world, travelling via Flash's super-speed and vibrational powers, although he ends up not making the trip personally.
And, finally, Batman leads a team consisting of Plastic Man, Black Canary, Hawkman and Green Arrow Oliver Queen to the CSA home world, travelling via Flash's super-speed and vibrational powers, although he ends up not making the trip personally.
So, as he did in JLA/Avengers, Busiek writes the League as a particular line-up, but one with a well of reserves it can call on when needed—another essential difference from the Syndicate; given their distrustful, back-biting nature, their roster is constrained by the fact that they are really the only five characters from their world willing to work together. This allows for a JLA adventure that features plenty of guest-stars, including various characters that various fans believe (and/or argue online) should be on the team, like Hawkman and Power Girl or whoever.
None of the three missions go exactly as planned—notably the JLE aren't able to completely defeat the Syndicate, who end up sitting on ring-generated lawn chairs in outer space, watching the Void Hound knock Superman and company around. There are some pretty effective surprises, so well executed that reading the story now, over 20 years after I originally read it, they surprised me all over again.
Ultimately, the Syndicate and the League join forces to take on the Void Hound, the particulars of the defeat of which, like the League's neutralization of the Syndicate, was foreshadowed (or perhaps telegraphed) in the earliest chapters of this huge story.
At the end, each team returns to the world they protect or rule. The last two pages return to the cosmic egg/baby universe, and features an appearance by Metron, a scene promising that this particular story isn't yet over. (Indeed it's not, although it would take a few more years before Busiek would get to tell it, in the pages of the year-long weekly 2008 series Trinity, with collaborators including Mark Bagley, Fabian Nicieza, Tom Derenick and others.)
At the end, each team returns to the world they protect or rule. The last two pages return to the cosmic egg/baby universe, and features an appearance by Metron, a scene promising that this particular story isn't yet over. (Indeed it's not, although it would take a few more years before Busiek would get to tell it, in the pages of the year-long weekly 2008 series Trinity, with collaborators including Mark Bagley, Fabian Nicieza, Tom Derenick and others.)
As I said, Garney gets a lot more to do here than he did in the quieter, more character-focused "Pain of the Gods" which, after all, only featured a half-dozen different superheroes.
Here he's drawing something like 30 costumed characters, including about a half-dozen of whom are meant to be duplicates of another half-dozen, only with variations of their costumes and, of course, different attitudes, delineated by arched eyebrows and various sneers, frowns and evil grins. It's a pretty sizable swathe of the DC Universe, really, featuring a lot of practically Perez-style grids that make for rather dense pages, and yet Garney rather ably handles everything that Busiek throws at him.
There were a couple of points where I thought there was an art mistake, but, as I read on, I realized these were small tells tipping off one surprise or another.
Here he's drawing something like 30 costumed characters, including about a half-dozen of whom are meant to be duplicates of another half-dozen, only with variations of their costumes and, of course, different attitudes, delineated by arched eyebrows and various sneers, frowns and evil grins. It's a pretty sizable swathe of the DC Universe, really, featuring a lot of practically Perez-style grids that make for rather dense pages, and yet Garney rather ably handles everything that Busiek throws at him.
There were a couple of points where I thought there was an art mistake, but, as I read on, I realized these were small tells tipping off one surprise or another.
I think, in a perfect world—a world in which Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis were never published—Busiek and Garney would have made up the core of a new creative team on the ongoing JLA series but, of course, ours is not a perfect world.
Instead, DC let Brad Meltzer write the gobbledygook that turned into the murder "mystery" of Identity Crisis and then let Geoff Johns rejigger DC continuity and the nature of the multiverse for the first major time since Crisis On Infinite Earths, an obviously imperfect rejiggering that DC hasn't been able to resist regularly re-rejiggering in the almost two decades to follow.
As the next—and last—two arcs of JLA would be tie-ins to event miniseries and dedicate themselves to the winding down of this iteration of the Justice League team and book, "Syndicate Rules" now reads like a last hurrah for JLA and the JLA, one last big, crazy adventure in which the World's Greatest Heroes would band together to save the world—or worlds, really—that takes full advantage of the DC Comics toy box.
It's fun—if, perhaps, a little depressing—to imagine what might have been had DC given Busiek a full run, rather than just eight issues. After all, he managed a pretty compelling synthesis of Morrison's big ideas with Mark Waid's character work while using the newer characters introduced by Joe Kelly. It therefore seemed like the natural direction for the title to take next.
"Syndicate Rules" was collected in 2005's JLA Vol. 17: Syndicate Rules and 2017's JLA Vol. 9.
Next: Geoff Johns, Allan Heinberg, Chris Batista and Mark Farmer's "Crisis of Conscience" from 2005's JLA #115-119.
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