Justice League 3000 #2 (Comics Review)

DC launched its latest Justice League to some fanfare last month, debuting a look at the future a thousand years from now, when Mankind has stepped out into space, made contact with innumerable alien races, and formed a giant galaxy-spanning Commonwealth government. But, there are always dangers, and hence the organisation known as Cadmus has brought back the original Justice League (sans Cyborg) via cloning to deal with the threat of the Five. The first issue was was a bit poor in some respects, notably the art, but was decent overall, so I was quite cautious about picking up the second issue.

You know what though, I think this is a series that I can stick with, despite the flaws. Its really interesting to read about a Justice League team that is out of whack in a lot of different ways and is different while still being somewhat same. In the second issue, the writers pit the League of the future against their first actual threat and show how things don’t go exactly to plan. And the characters’ interactions with each other remain at the heart of the story. The art is a little better than the last time, but not by much however.

Continuing with the theme/idea of pitting the reborn heroes against the evils of the new galaxy, Cadmus sends the team to a world known as Flatmas, a possible staging ground for enemy activity. Their task is simple: take out the enemy’s garrisons and return. Nothing more, nothing else. But The Five somehow hear of this and they send their own agent to intercept the League, a reality-altering supervillain named Locus who is also very emotionally unbalanced and this ties in with the strength of her powers. So, quite a fun mix by all accounts.

As with the first issue, I really like this setting that the writers are exploring right now. Its something very different to what’s happening in the rest of the DC comics verse at the moment and that has a certain appeal to me. The comic is also quite a bit more upbeat than the rest of the titles, which are usually shadowed in a lot of grim darkness that has seeped out of the Bat-family titles and is now present in most of the other books. In terms of the humour, I think this series has much in common with Larfleeze, which is just as well in a way since Giffen and DeMatteis are collaborating on that one as well. Larfleeze is one of the best titles that DC has right now, largely because of the excellent humour element, and I can definitely see shades of that in Justice League 3000.

The whole idea of the reborn heroes missing some of their memories, and even some of their powers, is quite attractive. It creates some really interesting dynamics, most especially in the case of Superman who has a huge ego in the absence of the better qualities he learned under his human parents, the Kents. And a defective league like this, going up against a villain who is pretty much at the height of her powers, well, that is definitely the kind of story that I’d love to read about. And from the story perspective, I do like this issue. I love where the writers are going with the characters, especially their controllers Terry and Teri, the Cadmus doctors (and twin siblings), who created them in the first place.

The villain Locus is quite an interesting character herself, and I liked her quirky humour. And the writers make her out to be quite an omnipotent villain again and again, and I think they do that concept justice. I can only hope that we get to see more of her in future issues. I’d really like that.

From an art perspective, Howard Porter’s vision of the future is really good. The first page of the comic is absolutely gorgeous and I loved the whole transformation of the drone ship into an interstellar teleport gate, akin to a mobile transformative Stargate, as it were. This continues throughout the issue, and there are little things peppered here and there. My one major criticism however is that when the big fight between the heroes and the villain begins, the backgrounds feel empty, as if the fight is taking place against a green screen. Its all just tall buildings in the background, very generic, and very unexciting. And Porter still doesn’t quite have his faces right. Very distracting.

Overall, I think this is a good team though, and I certainly look forward to seeing them do more in future issues. I’d love for the team to get to do a good decent run on this title.

Rating: 8/10

More Justice League 3000: #1.