Written by Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis
Illustrated by Kevin MaguireIt’s time to “Bwah Ha Ha” all over again as this classic JLA team tells a lost tale from one of the JLA’s most popular eras. The Injustice Gang is back! Not the truly menacing, more recent incarnation, but their not-so competent predecessors. Still, when they stumble upon a device they should never be allowed to have, the results might prove more disastrous than if they actually knew what they were doing! A previously released story from the era rounds out the issue.
The legendary team of Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire reunite (again!) to recall the glory days of their celebrated Justice League International run. Do they bring back the Bwah-ha-ha as promised, or is this just a lazy attempt at nostalgia pandering? You know where to find the answers.
Let me say this first: I loved JLI. Really, that’s my second-favorite Justice League-related comic series next to Morrison’s ’90s run. Still, this issue… well, I don’t really know what to say about it. It just seems unnecessary. I know, I know, that’s a terrible reason. In fact, I’ve lambasted such opinions in the past. A comic doesn’t have to be “important” continuity-wise to be good. In fact, most of the best ones aren’t. Still – and I know this will just sound like “it isn’t wrong when I do it!” – this is something else entirely. The Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League was peppered with stories like this. In fact, this kind of lighthearted superhero tale is what the run remains most well-known for, even if things did get a bit melodramatic and/or action-packed at points. There’s a reason for this: Giffen’s silly plots, DeMatteis’s snappy dialogue and Maguire’s outrageous facial expressions made for such a great blend of general silliness that it stuck out from any Justice League comic that came before – comics that had plenty of melodrama and action, even if GDM (bear with the acronym) did said melodrama and action better than a good portion of those who came before.
So, as I mentioned, this issue plays more toward the “Bwah-ha-ha” ethic this era was known for. And so we ask that question that everyone hates: Why? It’s not that the issue is bad – it was entertaining, and elicited a good amount of chuckles from me – but it didn’t really do anything that their prior run didn’t already do. I could pay $4.99 for this one-and-done story and a reprint, or I could pick up one of my trades and flip to one of my favorite tales of the dysfunctional family that was the late ’80s/early ’90s Justice League. I suppose that’s unfair, but… well, it’s true. I’m not saying that you should only pick up a comic if it’s better than anything that team has done before, but I will hesitate to buy one that doesn’t do anything new – particularly if it isn’t anything new from what the writers and artists have done before. Them’s the breaks.
Let me reiterate, though: this isn’t a bad comic. If you come into it expecting everything everyone tends to love about the JLI, you’ll get it. Three Stooges-esque slapstick, Blue and Gold bromance (no, auto-correct, not bromine), and Guy… being Guy; it’s all here, and it’s what you would expect from the team that popularized these trends. In particular, Kevin Maguire gives us the incredibly lively art that we expect of him, but with an easily observable change in style. Now that he’s handling his own inking, his lines have become significantly thinner, culminating in a feel similar to his younger contemporary, Frank Quitely – a feel, of course, that is taken in a vastly different stylistic direction. For someone that has been as involved in the industry – and in the mainstream industry, at that – Maguire is one of those artists that you just don’t hear enough people extolling, even if he is a master of lively figure work… and, of course, of facial expression.
Now, I suppose I shouldn’t be reviewing the back-matter reprint, and I’m not really, but I would like to talk about it for just a few sentences. Again, this isn’t a bad story, but it certainly is an odd one to include, considering its ties to the then-ongoing continuity. Now, on the one hand I can understand wanting to have an issue that presents a bit more of that melodrama to balance out the lighthearted first story, but at the same time it isn’t exactly accessible to those who didn’t read the original run. Now, I know what you’re thinking: isn’t this supposed to cater to the nostalgia of the people that read this run as it was being printed? Well, yes and no. Because of Generation Lost, I insist that this issue could have pulled in readers that weren’t necessarily in the Retroactive series’ target audience. New fans, though, will get half an issue that they might not really “understand,” and longtime fans will get an issue they already have and one that they might as well already have. Either way, it isn’t really worth the $4.99 pricetag.
Final Verdict: 6.0 – Browse if you want to.
