So you picked up the first issue of Justice League: Generation Lost after Brandon Burpee gave it a most excellent review. Unfortunately, if you are new to DC Comics, you may be wondering “…this is the Justice League? Who are these guys, and why should I care?” The core of this new series is made up of the core team members of Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire’s Justice League International, otherwise affectionately dubbed as The Super Buddies. This is my favorite iteration of the Justice League, which means quite a lot from a Grant Morrison fanboy, so I urge you to follow the jump for a crash course in JLI history.
Starting in 1987, JLI was an attempt to really shake up how people viewed the Justice League. The only standard JLA members were Batman and J’onn J’onzz, while the rest of the cast was made up of characters that were either slightly less popular or complete no-names. The good thing about this was that it allowed Giffen and DeMatteis to have a good deal of leeway with the characters they were using, giving some much needed development to some of these heroes. With its great humor and excellent storytelling, JLI is one of my personal favorites, and I highly recommend it to anyone. Only the first half of it is currently collected in trade, but if you enjoy the first 30 issues it’s well worth seeking out the rest.
After Giffen and DeMatteis left, even more spin-off groups were made. While there were certainly all sorts of changes going on, none of this was collected in trade, and I wouldn’t say that they’re worth the effort to seek them out in back issues (except Mark Waid’s Justice League Task Force). Two of the more important events to occur in this time period was the League’s involvement in Superman’s battle with Doomsday (collected in trade) and the Justice League crossover Judgment Day. If you can’t find the latter in back issues, the most important thing to know is that (Spoilers)Ice dies.
As a brief aside, can we pretend Extreme Justice never happened? We can? Ok, good. Moving on.
From here we skip ahead about ten years to the reunification of Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguire in the miniseries Formerly Known as the Justice League and its somewhat-sequel I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League. Ten years is quite a jump, but as mentioned earlier the titles over this time that featured major characters from the JLI are hard to find and often not worth the effort. These two stories are probably the funniest comics I have ever read, and as much of that credit goes to Maguire as DeMatteis and Giffen. You could remove all the words from the books and you would still be rolling on the floor with laughter due to Maguire’s wonderful reaction faces. He was certainly great in the early days of JLI, but by these arcs he had really honed his craft.
Unfortunately, with Identity Crisis things got a lot less fun and happy for the Super Buddies. Lots of people were taken by surprise at how harsh Identity Crisis was, but few were as crushed as those who had been long time fans of the JLI. Infinite Crisis didn’t make anything better, though some fans were happy to see the team play a big part for the first time in a while, particularly in The O.M.A.C. Project tie-ins. If you would rather not read the whole Infinite Crisis list (which is understandable), I would at least read Countdown to Infinite Crisis, The O.M.A.C. Project, Sacrifice and the main book.
If you’ve actually been following these lists, you’re probably tired of 52. Too bad! Both Ralph Dibny and, in particular, Booster Gold play important roles in the series. Following everyone’s favorite weekly comic the Buddies (or what’s left of them) have more or less gone their separate ways. Booster has his own series, the new Blue Beetle has his own (despite not being a member of the team…yet), and Fire is now a member of Checkmate. While Fire is mainly a secondary character in that book, it’s still a great read anyways. Also of relevance is the Birds of Prey arc Dead Winter due to…well, you’ll see.
Most difficult to place on this list is Captain Atom. He’s gone through so many changes over the past few years, even being transplanted to Wildstorm Universe at one point. Even worse, a lot of these changes didn’t even acknowledge that anything was modified. If you really want to read Captain Atom: Armageddon or Countdown be my guest, but I’m choosing to leave them off the list because of this. Your best bet would be to read the co-feature in Action Comics sometime before Generation Lost, seeing as this is the version of Captain Atom we will be seeing in the new title.
Before we get to Generation Lost, though, we have the matter of Blackest Night. The story relies on some JLI characters, but of most importance is how it sets up Generation Lost. If you’re already familiar with the story, I would go ahead and move on to Generation Lost; however, if you do plan on reading it I would suggest the Green Lantern Corps tie-ins as well.
Voila! You now are familiar with the Super Buddies and perfectly prepared for almost anything Justice League: Generation Lost will throw at you (unless you’re supposed to not be prepared for it, of course). I would go ahead and pick up Booster Gold as well now that everyone’s favorite trio is on it. Just remember that #34 comes before Generation Lost #1 and you’re good to go. As always, here’s the final list:
- Justice League International
- The rest of Giffen and DeMatteis’ JLA and JLE, up to #60 and #36, respectively
- The Death of Superman*
- Justice League: Judgment Day* (JLA 89-90, JLI 65-66, Justice League Task Force 13-14)
- Formerly Known as the Justice League
- I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League
- Identity Crisis
- Infinite Crisis
- 52
- Blue Beetle: Shellshocked
- Blue Beetle: Road Trip
- Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up
- Checkmate: A King’s Game*
- Birds of Prey: Dead Winter
- Checkmate: Pawn Breaks*
- Outsiders/Checkmate: Checkout*
- Checkmate: Fall of the Wall*
- Blue Beetle: Reach for the Stars
- Booster Gold: Blue and Gold
- Blue Beetle: End Game
- Checkmate: Chimera
- Booster Gold: Reality Lost
- Blue Beetle: Boundaries
- Booster Gold: Day of Death
- Blackest Night*
- Booster Gold: The Tomorrow Memory (yet to be released in trade)
- Justice League: Generation Lost
