Book Review: Justice League 3000 vol #1 (New 52)

Book: Justice League 3000 volume #1: Yesterday Lives (issues #1-7) by Keith Griffen and J.M. DeMatteis with illustration by Howard Porter and color by HI-FI

Edition: Single print issues

Rating: 2 stars

Review:

Wow, this was a total mess. Reading this made the second volume of Supergirl look like a masterpiece. Most of the story was filled with non-stop arguing amongst the team and arguing between the twins Terry and Teri which overall became really annoying. What made this a disappointing read was the writing, it was both bad and repetitive with the story being extremely predictability. You can easily see where the story was going.

In these seven issues, Cadmus was in need of a way to stop the encroaching enemy The Five who have been quickly taking over the galaxy. A plan was created to bring back the original members of the Justice League from DNA samples. However, scientist Ariel Masters no longer wanted to go through with the plan and took off with Cadmus attempting to bring her back.

The experiment although defected was conducted by the twins had Batman (who had all the skill but lacked the knowledge and wisdom acquired by Bruce over the years), Wonder Woman (who is angry and bloodthirsty), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan, who doesn't have access to all of his power without the lantern ring), The Flash (Barry Allen, a pessimist who is lacking his speed friction aura) and Superman (who is an angry arrogant egoistical meathead who is without many things including flight, intelligence, humanity and heat vision) in the 31st century. This group of famed heroes can barely get along to complete a mission but are apparently the only hope to save the galaxy.

Going in for another mission which the team was unprepared for, they wound up fighting an alien villain named Locus who was pretty much a Harley Quinn knockoff with the ability to do anything she wants with only a thought. She killed The Flash, captured Green Lantern and sent the other three off to some random planet called Takron-Galtos.

On Takron-Galtos, Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman besides constantly arguing found themselves on a prison planet which used to be Earth. They also found an ally who could help them meet the one who is responsible for them being in this new century, Ariel Masters. After a revelation about how they were really created, they were soon fighting against members of The Five and trying to figure out a way to escape the planet.

Back at Cadmus, another Flash was created along with Firestorm and now the two were tasked to rescue the Justice League. Meanwhile, Green Lantern was being held captive by Locus who is too far gone to be reasoned with. Finally with a chance to escape it resulted in his death.

The group on Takron-Galtos wasn't faring any better but stood a little bit of a chance once The Flash and Firestorm showed up. That little advantage didn't last long they were soon captured and taken to The Five's headquarters where The Five tried to find out everything they could about the Justice League.

Help came from Green Latern (who remarkably wasn't dead), after he was brought to The Five's headquarter when Locus showed up. Hal had been biding his time until he could get away and once he met Ariel Masters, he learned the truth about his powers and how they were affecting him.

After GL broke them out, the league came up with a plan to escape, however they have yet to stop arguing. They took out their main threat by sidelining Locus before escaping. The league and Ariel took refuge on one of the preservation planets as they try to find a way to be rescued by Cadmus.

The league's status quo of fighting was only temporarily interrupted when they found out they had been double crossed by one of the twins with The Flash being killed yet again. With no way out of their current predicament, the league had no choice but to agree to the demands and return into the clutches of The Five.

This had so much potential to be an amazing group of issues, it had a good premise but was poorly executed which ruined it. What is it with making these characters so unlikeable? I get it they are nothing like the original. But the writers had the opportunity to create a unique version of these characters instead all that's shown is nothing but a bunch of angry characters who can't get along. There was a slight improvement with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman's personalities as the story progressed but they were still unlikable. The only characters I liked throughout the entire story were Green Lantern and The Flash.

I wonder if the writers had something against The Flash because it makes no sense to keep killing him off. Was that supposed to be some kind of running gag? If it was a joke it wasn't very funny.

I hope the second volume will be a vast improvement over this one. Here's hoping it can't get any worse.