Book: Justice League International volume #1: The Signal Masters (issues #1-6) written by Dan Jurgens with illustrations by Aaron Lopresti with color by Brian Miller (Hi-Fi)
Rating: 1 star
Review:
I read the single issues instead of the trade edition. These were the first six issues of the now canceled JLI.
I thought this was going to be interesting with many of the not so well known characters of the DC universe forming a team. However, this wasn't very good. The writing was really bad, the story was terrible and the characterizations just felt off. The best thing about these issues was the color and illustrations.
The story went far longer than it should have. The first five issues had the team of Booster Gold, Vixen, Fire, Ice, Green Lantern (Guy Gardner), Rocket Red, Godiva, August General in Iron and with an assistance from Batman being created by the United Nations. Then they were to go out to try to rescue a research team that went missing in Peru. However, all they found was a giant robot that has erupted from the ground. That turned into the team finding three more giant robots that turned up in Russia, Africa and Canada. After separating to try to figure out what the robots were up to, the group somehow managed to get themselves captured. They found themselves captives of Peraxxus who was going to destroy the world to gather it's resources. The sixth issue dealt with the team's status being determined by the UN and whether they will stay together as a team.
Oh, there was side story with home grown terrorists who were so disappointed with the UN taking over The Hall of Justice they had become rather motivated to try to take out the JLI.
I also found this to be quite sexist. There were several times when the women were referred to as "girls" and told to stand back and let the stronger, more powerful members (who happened to be the men) take on the task. There was also scene after scene of the female members getting easily knocked out of battle. Not to mention the guys made all the decisions while the women were just there to look pretty.
Something that made no sense to me was, why was Batman there? Let's see Batman is part of Batman, Inc., the Justice League as well as stopping villains and criminals in Gotham. How does he have the time to help Justice League International? I know Batman was a part of the pre-New 52 JLI but in this it didn't really feel like he was really a part of the team. It just seemed like his presence was there only to draw in readers.
With all of these amazing characters, you would think there would be something that would make them unique but they were all missing a personality. Most of the interaction was of them arguing with each other instead of trying to get to know each other.
These issues had a lot of problems, from the bad writing to the horrible story, it just didn't work.
I also think there are too many government created teams in the new 52 and all of these forced teams throws off the team dynamics. Because really these characters wouldn't have become a team if they weren't put together. The reason JLI was put together is so the governments of the world could have superheroes they can control. Which doesn't make for interesting reading.
Even though I didn't enjoy this, I'm going to read the remainder of the series to see if it a least got any better before it was canceled.
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