Justice League International Annual #1

This issue is what I thought #12 was going to be. Here I had hopes for this team but it ended up been completely wiped out. But at least it was better than I thought as it hints for stories to come next year

The issue starts with a normal mission of the team been awesome. But as they leave, we get to see something wrong with OMAC. The team returns to their HQ where they receive two new members; blue beetle and Olympian…wait what!? Blue beetle in JLI!? Awesome! But this doesn’t pleases guy as he decides to leave since he doesn’t want to be a pawn to make booster gain same glory the other justice league has. We move back to the new members where Olympian seems to had a thing with godiva before as he tries to regain that lost love which probably didn’t pleased the iron general judging by his silence. Blue beetle asks for cyborg since he wants to talk to him about his bug suit but booster tells him that OMAC can help him out in that one. Things seem to be going fine since booster claims that he has read in his history books of the 25 century that the JLI will become greater than the original and nothing is going to stop them….obviously something is going to stop them the moment the general goes in look for OMAC who is in the security tower and starts attacking him. The others as they walk to the conference room to get their next assignment are shocked to see OMAC holding a probably dead iron general and NOOOOO!!!! Everyone but the general!! Oh wait…he is still alive but dying because without his helmet that fell off he won’t last. It doesn't take long for the proud Olympian to challenge the blue monster and gets his butt kicked easily as well as godiva and booster. It’s revealed that brother eye has taken over OMAC but not by his own will since he has a new programmer who has given him the order to exterminate the team (and test itself out before challenging the big guns) and use the HQ computers to locate and reunite with the satellite (who for those who haven’t read OMAC, the brother eye satellite was put out of commission by maxwell lord and checkmate in the final issue of the series). Things go bad for booster till blue beetle comes to the rescue and is successful in countering the blue monster with his weaponry till brother eye using the data he has on the scarab uses his either mother box or boom tube tech to sent Jaime to the reach’s home, leading to Blue Blue #13. Leaving only booster and godiva to fight, they two try to hide away from OMAC as the british gal thinks that the justice league will come to help but booster drops the ball on her about him lying. That they never answered back his calls and that he only did all this to be rich and famous. But godiva becoming slowly a character I care about kisses him and tells him that it’s fine since they all have issues anyways and that the team was formed to find a way to better themselves. OMAC finds them and booster takes him on by himself while finding out it was batman who build brother eye (never thought he would build that bloody satellite here in the new 52) but it isn't his new programmer. When everything seems to be over for our heroes booster reveals to him that he has a defense protocol way too advanced for this time that counter viruses like brother eye which DE-OMACTIVATE the monster. Brother eye decides to leave Kevin Kho (the host for OMAC) to avoid the satellite to be affected by the defense system, finally turning him back to human. As we almost reach the ending booster is told by a person who just arrived that the JLI will be replaced by a superior team known as the global guardians which the general of iron, godiva and Olympian will be part of and OMAC will face new challenges but far from there. The person is revealed to be an older booster gold with a ARGUS emblem on him who tells his younger self to talk to steve Trevor and the soon to be JLA to help him stop something that will make both of them disappear. It is revealed to be something related to both superman and wonder woman getting together as the two suddenly banish when the older one reveals the events on a giant screen. The issue ends with batman talking with cyborg’s father about Kevin Kho been taking cared of by S.T.A.R labs with the support of the wayne foundation and brother eye revealing himself to the dark knight and warned him that he is going to kill him if he doesn’t join his programmer and will wait till he gets the signal to strike. Claiming to be continued in justice league next year.

The Good:

The end of the team was much more than just a simple conflict that separates the group. The destruction of the JLI has much more meaning than just drama for the sake of it. It’s the start of many events to come which I really can’t wait for like the future of OMAC and brother eye, the reachworld storyline in blue beetle and the negative effects of wonder woman and superman hooking up. I really can’t wait to see what will happen because of it. Also liked the art and the action were nice too.

The Bad:

First off I feel really bad how geoff and didio send most of this interesting heroes to the sidelines. A group of people who have been shown to be much more heroic and clearly a much better example of what a superhero team should be; heck! These guys remind me so much of the pre-reboot heroes, I actually can look up to them despite all the struggles they had to deal with during their 12 issue series. But no! they are treated to be nothing more than easily disposable B-listers compared to the mess that the “A-List” heroes are right now (meaning the way the original league works). I really wanted to know more about the newly introduced Olympian and now I will have to probably wait for a long time till DC decides to introduce the iron general and godiva (my favorite characters of this team) again in an ongoing which sucks. Also it’s kinda messed up for blue beetle fans to have Jaime be a member of a justice league for just a few minutes….that was a horrible tease…..oh well! Hope Lobdell adds him in teen titans soon. Also, i don't remember brother eye tell booster about batman been his creator...could it be he just remembered in what he read about the past?

Overall: 4/5

A dark yet great last goodbye to one of my favorite teams which at least managed to get an annual to show how important their end was for the future of DC. And since we are getting a new Justice League of soon with some characters I wanted to see for a while I hope it becomes as good as or greater than this series.