As a kid a
fixture of my Saturday was tuning in to see the newest episode of “SUPER
FRIENDS” during the morning block of cartoons on television. SUPER FRIENDS featured the adventures of DC
COMICS greatest heroes working together as the Justice League of America to
protect the world from the villainous Legion of Doom which united the comic
publisher’s greatest villains to promote anarchy and destruction. The Justice League of America featured a core
membership of Aquaman, Batman & Robin, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman,
Wonder Woman, Superman and the Wonder Twins (Wonder Twin Powers
activate!). They were occasionally
assisted by other “junior” members of the team like Hawkman, Plasticman, and
the Green Arrow. SUPER FRIENDS ran on ABC from
1973 to 1986, but this wasn’t the first time that DC COMICS brought
together its individual characters to work together as a team.
The Justice
League of America first debuted in the comic book THE BRAVE & THE BOLD #28
in February 1960. After a few
appearances by the Justice League of America in THE BRAVE & THE BOLD the
team was given its own self-titled comic book series that ran until 2011. JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA was one of DC
COMICS best selling publications during a 50 year run.
In September 2011 DC cancelled all their
titles and relaunched all the comic books in their universe starting at issue
#1 in what they called the NEW 52. It
was a fresh start for all their comic book characters and story lines and with
that came some changes. The JUSTICE
LEAGUE OF AMERICA title with its core assemble of characters was changed to
just JUSTICE LEAGUE. Same cast, simpler
title and the things move on…well not necessarily. DC reintroduced JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA a
year after the kick-off of the NEW 52 but it isn’t the same JUSTICE LEAGUE OF
AMERICA that I grew up with or many people would think of when they hear the
name.
In the NEW
52 era, the general public is just discovering the existence of individuals who
have super powers and is scared of them whether they are using their talents
for good or evil. The U.S. Government
doesn’t trust that the JUSTICE LEAGUE will always support its national security
interests or in fact not be a threat itself to the Country. So the United States creates its own super
powered team, THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, meant to safeguard the country versus the Justice League and to
perform secret missions for an agency called ARGUS (Advance Research Group for
Uniting Super-Humans).
The Justice
League of America team in the NEW 52 is made up of essentially the type of
characters who would be second-tier characters for the Justice League and pits
them against DC’s core super heroes. The
cast for Justice League consists of Martian Manhunter, Hawkman,
Stargirl, the new Green Lantern Simon Baz, Katana, and Vibe plus are led by
someone most of us probably associate as a criminal, Batman’s lover and antagonist
the Catwoman.
So DC COMICs
did make a gritty change in its NEW 52 reboot with the origin and cast of
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA. Did you miss
the original monthly installments of Justice League of America? If so and you are interested in this newly formatted
team DC has just published a paperback book compilation of the first seven
issues of the series titled JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA: VOLUME ONE. This New 52
monthly series has decent artwork and storylines worth giving it a read. This comic book is probably most interesting
for those people intrigued about the angle of how this Justice League of
America differs from the one most of us are more familiar with from before the New
52 timeline.
For more
information, visit: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA: VOLUME 1
DISCLAIMER: The publisher provided me with digital PDF advance copy of THE JUSTICE
LEAGUE OF AMERICA: VOLUME 1 for this
review. The comments and opinions in
this post are my own.
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