Justice League of America #1

It was my Birthday my dad was feeling nice so he got me this as a present and Uncanny X-men #1 as well.

This line up I really like it is so different from other teams it really is a mismatched bunch of characters Catwoman, Martian Manhunter and then Stargirl? Who wouldn’t be interested to see that also I love David Finch and I wanted to see what he would add to this book so yeah I was really excited.

Plot

Amanda Waller talks to Steve Trevor about the Justice League and the danger they represent and the recent events that they have been involved in he agrees to start the team up and she shows him the team members.

Review

I loved this issue it is different from most #1s as none of the super powered team members actually meet (not counting Steve Trevor he meets a few), this issue basically establishes why they picked these people to deal with the Justice League if the Justice League ever got out of control and well if anyone was still wondering why Catwoman was on this team now you have no excuse. This issue does take it’s time to show the characters and how they fit in it isn’t slow paced as all parts are necessary.

It is possible that the team not actually meeting is a bad thing but it sure isn’t like I said these characters are very different and some haven’t even met it would not work if you shoved all these characters together at once it would feel forced and it wouldn’t work out will (it won’t anyway considering the next one is called team dynamics) but some of these characters are a bit obscure (I’d never even heard of Stargirl, Katanna or Vibe before this) so it really wouldn’t work out well and would affect the story and the issue badly.

There is also a sub plot in this issue with someone trying to escape an island being chased by people who look like variations of the Justice League and well it takes up less amount of space in this issue than the other part but it is intense and is a nice subplot to the calmer talking scenes with Amanda Waller and Steve Trevor because well it is substantially different this bit is intense he’s got an arrow stuck in his side and is running through a dark jungle while being attacked it’s intense all round and it is very well done and well the reveal of who it is, is a shock but makes sense and it was a great twist to the story.

Really the reason this team was formed was because of the threat of the Justice League and the Superman and Wonder Woman relationship. I knew that the other Justice League would come into this somehow but I didn’t think the team would be chosen so that they could fight the other members of the Justice League it adds an interesting spin on things and I’m interested to see what happens next. The matchups after introducing all of the characters make sense once the powers are explained (still not sold on the Katanna one but I don’t know her power levels that well so I can’t tell properly).

All of the characters of this team are introduced apart from Baz and their powers are explained, why they should be on the team and possible problems with them and well it works out well and is perfectly executed not suddenly jumping from one to the next it transitions through the Steve Trevor and Amanda Waller scenes it helps to understand why they were chosen for the team. Each team member is given a decent page count enough to explain everything but Catwoman is the person who gets the most attention which was obviously needed considering she was the big shock when this book was announced and well the scene is interesting in many ways because one it’s interesting to see Catwoman and Steve Trevor interact and two it drops hints as to stuff that is coming and well it is perfectly written and a good introduction of the character to the team.

The one I was most interested in though was Star Girl and Vibe, both of them I had never heard of before and I was interested to know more. Vibe’s story is interesting and well I’m interested to see more of him and well he does seem like an interesting character and should bring an interesting dynamic to the team. I’m really interested in Star girl though because well she’s a young teenage girl and gets Night terrors and is easily scared and she’s joining a team of generally tough and badass characters and well I’m seriously interested to see how it turns out as she is yet another of the great additions to the team that makes it very different.

The character I probably like most of all of them is Martian Manhunter as well I like him a lot and I missed him and wanted him to reappear and I’m pleased to see him in this and his entrance to this issue was clever and a nice twist to the story and well what he says adds a lot of tension to this issue and this team already is quite tense with all of the build-up and threats in this issue.

I love David Finch I like his gritty scratchy style and while he wouldn’t fit on the normal Justice League he goes perfectly with this tenser book and he does a brilliant job in this issue he doesn’t do a lot of action scenes which is what he’s best at but what he does do has a very dark look very gritty dynamic and shadowy. I like the colouring in this issue it works well with the dark and shadowy art as it’s quite dark as well and makes everything look sombre and it brings a lot of tension to the book. At one point the colourist switches from Sonia Oback (the main colourist) to Jeremy Cox and there is a noticeable difference Cox’s colours are a little brighter and it makes it looks a lot like Jason Fabok (who he colours in Detective) and it is by no means bad but it was an interesting part of the issue.

Verdict

This was such a good issue and it doesn’t follow the normal 1 issue team book formula it does some different things and executes it perfectly and at no point becomes boring I’m very tempted to now swap this for another book because I liked it so much everyone should try this out and in my opinion it could become better than the normal Justice League.

5 stars