Justice League of America Wedding Special #1 Review

Brad Meltzer’s spectacular run on the Justice League of America is officially over. The Revolution enjoyed Meltzer’s incredibly deep, complex and philosophical take on the Justice League of America. Yeah, it was slower paced and thick with character development, but I much prefer that to shallow character work and hyper action fight scenes.

At any rate, Dwayne McDuffie kicks off his run on the JLA with Justice League of America Wedding Special #1. I’ve never been all that impressed with McDuffie’s writing abilities. McDuffie is a journeyman writer who has spent time writing comics for various companies including Marvel, Harvey Comics, Milestone Media and DC. Looking at his bibliography it appears that outside of Milestone Media, McDuffie has had mostly short runs or fill-in spots. McDuffie also has written cartoons such as Static Shock, Justice League, Teen Titans and What’s New, Scooby Doo?

On the other hand, you have Meltzer who is currently writing his seventh novel. A cartoon writer succeeding a novelist. There is sure to be a drastic change in styles with Justice League of America Wedding Special #1. Let’s go ahead and do this review.

Creative Team
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Penciller: Mike McKone
Inker: Andy Lanning

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: We begin with Lex, Joker and Cheetah having their own version of the meeting Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman had to select the new members of the JLA. Except here we are choosing members for the Injustice League.

We cut to Hal Jordan in a panic calling Batman for money to pay the strippers that Hal got before finding out that Ollie doesn’t want strippers at his bachelor party. Batman guesses everything Hal wants and why before Hal can tell him. Why? Because he is Batman.

Batman isn’t coming to the party because he says that the odds are the party will come to him. Hal hangs up the phone and then Roy tells Hal that they have a problem. Outside the hotel is a ton of media members taking photos. Evidently, they found out the location of Ollie’s bachelor party. Roy says that they can’t have League members show up for the party at the hotel without exposing their secret identities.

Hal calls Batman. Before Hal can say anything Batman says that Hal is calling to move the party to the Hall of Justice since he figured out having a party at a public place would endanger the guests’ secret identities. Hal tells Bruce that he is kind of annoying. Batman responds “But accurate.”

We cut to the Hall of Justice where Ollie’s bachelor party is in full swing. Hal tells Bruce to go ahead and say “I told you so.” We see Ollie, Roy and Connor all talking together. Hal then grabs John Stewart and speaks to him privately.

Hal asks John to fill in for him with the Justice League. John says it is no problem. Hal says he appreciates it and he knows that John has to always end up taking crap about being Hal’s backup and being called the “Black Lantern.” (Huh? What? In all my years of reading comic books when did this ever come up with regard to John Stewart?) John says it is no big deal and that the two of them will take turns with the Justice League duties for a while.

We cut to Firestorm (oh god, please tell me this total loser isn’t going to get an offer to join the JLA) arriving at some warehouse. Inside is Killer Frost who proceeds to brawl with Firestorm. Firestorm manages to turn the floor to anti-freeze and neutralizes Killer Frost’s powers.

Suddenly, Lex, Joker and Cheetah appear and brutally kick Firestorm’s ass. They tell Killer Frost that they killed Firestorm as a token of their esteem for Killer Frost. They then ask her to come join their unique organization. Lex makes the comment how Firestorm was stupid to post a scientific papers on how his powers work so that villains could create a way to neutralize his powers. The villains then teleport away. (And as much as I hope Firestorm is dead, we just know that he is going to make a “miraculous” recovery.)

We shift to the Hall of Doom, where Lex, Joker, Cheetah and Killer Frost arrive at the main meeting room where all the rest of the members of the Injustice League Unlimited are gathered. We see numerous big name villains like Deathstroke, Poison Ivy, Gorilla Grodd, Cheshire, Mr. Freeze, Dr. Light, Metallo, Dr. Sivana, Black Manta and a ton of other villains.

We hop over to Black Canary’s bachelorette party that is being held at a male strip bar. All the JLA ladies are there slutting it up. One of the strippers asks to speak with Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman outside. The guy informs Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl that his sister works at The Hospital in New York and Firestorm was just admitted and it looks like he might not make it.

We cut to the Hall of Justice where Batman suddenly gets an emergency signal. Batman tells Roy to meet him in the hangar in five minutes. Ollie tells Roy he better not be late or Batman might literally kill Roy.

We see Batman and Roy headed to the crime scene where Firestorm was attacked. Batman tells Roy that the Batcomputer routinely searches and sorts hospital records looking for super-villains getting treatment. The Batcomputer got a hit, but it was this time it wasn’t a villain. It was Firestorm.

We zip over to The Hospital where the doctors have a “respecting the cowl” policy where they keep super heroes’ true identities a secret. They have a special Department of Metahuman Medicine. Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl enter Firestorm’s hospital room. The doctor tells them that Firestorm is making a surprisingly rapid recovery. (Of course. Damn.)

We hop back to Roy and Bruce at the crime scene. Batman shows off his incredible detective prowess and leaves Roy feeling rather dumb.

We then cut to the Hall of Doom, where the Injustice League is holding its first meeting. Lex states that essentially the Injustice League was conceived as a protection racket. For 35% of a member’s take, a member would always have super-powered back up to protect them from the Justice League. But, that was just the enticement to get everyone here.

What Lex is really interested in is the potential power of this gathering that would allow them to overthrow the American government and replace it with their proxies. They could create a new America where crime and corruption are accepted as a normal part of life. The first step in this plan requires the total destruction of the Justice League.

We slide back to the crime scene were Roy and Batman are still investigating for clues. Suddenly, Joke and Fatality teleport onto the scene. They have a beaten up Geo-Force with them. Evidently, Geo-Force got there before Batman and Roy, yet the super detective didn’t figure that out. Okay. Anyway, Fatality quickly takes out both Batman and Roy.

We then hop over to The Hospital where Killer Frost, Cheetah and Dr. Light kick ass on Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl. Wonder Woman tells Hawkgirl to escape and tell the others. Hawkgirl manages to make an escape through the window.

We shift to the Hall of Justice where Hawkgirl comes crashing through a window and disrupts the bachelor party. Hawkgirl tells the JLA members that the Injustice League are all working together. Hawkgirl then passes out. Superman then says that the party is over and that they need to go to work. End of issue.

Comments
The Good: Justice League of America Wedding Special #1 was an fun read. Not surprising like the fun I have when watching an episode of the Justice League Unlimited cartoon. McDuffie turns in a nicely paced and focused issue. This issue is very tightly plotted as it moves in a linear fashion with a real purpose.

You can see the basic building blocks for this story arc laid out in a simple fashion as McDuffie builds the foundation for this Injustice League Unlimited story arc. It isn’t anything original, complex or unique. It is solid basic standard issue comic book construction. And sometimes keeping it simple is the smart way to build a dependable concrete foundation for a multi-issue story arc.

McDuffie serves up some solid dialogue. Yeah, it is a bit cartoon-ish at points. And it does read like your standard issue comic book dialogue complete with plenty of “snappy” dialogue and witty banter. But, it makes the issue an easy and fun read.

McDuffie delivers a nice blend of dialogue and action. At no point does McDuffie make the reader go more than several pages without having some type of action scene thrown in there to keep this issue a fast read.

McDuffie unveils his Injustice League Unlimited with cartoon like over the top malevolence and Dr. Evil style desires of conquest. I enjoyed how McDuffie paralleled Meltzer’s formation of this incarnation of the JLA with having the unholy trinity of the Injustice League sifting through photos and deciding who they should invite to join their League.

Lex is definitely a bad-ass. He comes across practically identical to the Lex Luthor from the JLU cartoon rather than the complex version we have gotten over recently on Action comics and Superman. Lex’s haughty attitude and his sneering comments to a bloody and broken Firestorm instantly make him a villain that is very easy to hate.

The vicious beat down of Firestorm definitely served notice that this Injustice League is not messing around. I wasn’t expected to see Firestorm to get sliced and diced like he did by the furious Cheetah.

McDuffie’s Injustice League Unlimited is a pretty entertaining group of characters. I love that they are using the Hall of Doom for their headquarters and are officially calling it the “Hall of Doom.” Very cool. The Injustice League of America is basically a larger version of the Injustice Gang and the later Secret Society of Super Villains from the Justice League Unlimited cartoon.

McDuffie’s Injustice League Unlimited is populated with old school styled 1970’s villains. They are bad to the core and have no shades of grey to their personalities. The reader can immediately hate them with little knowledge of their background or characters. They are straight up bad guys with your old school desire to take over the world. And their objective to take out the Justice League prior to implementing their plans for taking over the world is reminiscent of the Super Friends and the Justice League cartoons.

I loved the scene in the beginning of this issue between Hal Jordan and Batman. We got plenty of snappy and fast paced humorous dialogue. McDuffie writes a Batman very similar to what we get over on the Justice League Unlimited cartoon. He is all-knowing and irritating, but not a brooding, dark and insulated character with a dick-ish attitude that you get in the rest of the DCU. This version of the Batman is entertaining and fits into the cartoon-ish feel of McDuffie’s JLA.

Justice League of America Wedding Special #1 was a rather nice lead-in to the upcoming Injustice League story arc beginning with Justice League of America #13. McDuffie does an excellent job wasting no time at all introducing all the pertinent players to this story arc and getting the ball rolling. The reader is primed and ready for this story arc to officially kick off over on JLA #13. McDuffie impressed me with the ability to set the stage with a strong ending and get the reader excited about this upcoming story arc.

Now, I was curious about two characters that McKone and Lanning drew in this issue. First, why does the Atom have blue eyes? The current Atom, Ryan Choi, sports brown eyes. Is this just an artist mistake or is this Atom not Ryan Choi? I wouldn’t imagine that it is Ray Palmer since he is still missing somewhere in the Multiverse according to the storyline over in Countdown.

Second, what version of Black Condor did I see in the background with Wildcat? That looks just like the costume that the original Black Condor, Richard Grey, Jr., wore. We know that the Black Condor was killed off when Johns was on a killing frenzy during Infinite Crisis. Now, we know that the new Multiverse sports the original Freedom Fighters over on Earth-10. This clearly doesn’t look like the Black Condor of New Earth that we saw in the Freedom Fighters mini-series. So, is this Black Condor from Earth-10 and nobody seems to notice or care that he is from a parallel Earth?

McKone and Lanning provide for plenty of solid artwork. McKone has a style of art that has broad appeal. He isn’t going to be your favorite artist, but usually nobody is totally turned off by his style of artwork. He has a nice clean look that, while it may not be a reason to purchase the title, it certainly doesn’t get in the way of the story.

I have to admit that even though I think McKone does a good enough job with the art, his stuff is nowhere near as nice looking as what Ed Benes gave us during Meltzer’s run on this title. But, McKone’s artwork does fit McDuffie’s cartoon style writing better than Benes’ artwork would.

The Bad: McDuffie’s dialogue, though easy to read and possessing a nice flow, was far from perfect. The dialogue was not particularly original and read like canned super hero and super villain talk. At times the dialogue was downright predictable.

The character work was rather superficial. Unlike Meltzer’s run which was very heavy in character development, McDuffie gives us more caricatures rather than characters in this issue. It is rather much like what you get on a cartoon. None of the characters are particularly well developed or textured. The various heroes and villains play to their stereotypical qualities and come off a bit shallow.

The story itself is a sharp contrast to what we got with Meltzer. And it is to be expected when a cartoon writer replaces a novelist. Meltzer was dialogue heavy and spent the vast majority of his time developing the characters of the JLA members and delving deep into their psyches. McDuffie, on the other hand, eschews much heavy dialogue or introspective storylines and plays it straight delivering very black and white heroes and villains along with plenty of action.

McDuffie’s Justice League of America definitely reads like the comic book version of the Justice League Unlimited cartoon. Now, this title doesn’t read as childish as the Johnny DC Justice League Unlimited comic book. However, McDuffie’s JLA certainly isn’t as a mature read as Meltzer’s JLA. McDuffie’s JLA is a tweener that is somewhere between the two.

Now, I loved the Justice League Unlimited cartoon as much as the next person. However, that really is not what I want in my Justice League of America comic book. If I wanted to read a comic book version of the JLU cartoon, then I already have the Justice League Unlimited comic book all ready on the market. I don’t need Justice League of America to fill that role.

I understand that McDuffie is trying to mimic the Justice League Unlimited format with a large roster and rotating characters in an out based on the specific mission. That is fine and I enjoyed that in the cartoon and over on the Justice League Unlimited comic book.

However, what I want from the Justice League of America comic book is exclusivity. I want a small roster of all-star heroes. I want more mature stories that deal with strong character development and complex storylines. I want the A-list showing why they are the best in the business. I like a more manageable small roster that allows the writer to really explore the various characters and how they relate to each other. I want drama and tension to go along with my action scenes.

Now, let’s talk about the mind numbingly and predictable move of McDuffie replacing Hal with John. The very moment I head McDuffie was taking over the Justice League of America, the first thing I said was “Well, I guess that means Hal is off the team and John is on it.” Well, sure enough, that is what McDuffie does, but he does so in an incredibly weird and awkward manner.

What the hell was up with the whole “Black Lantern” comment from Hal Jordan? Since when has anyone in the DCU even remotely given John Stewart shit about being a cheap version of Hal? Or even used the term “Black Lantern?” That was so totally out of left field and off base. I have never seen any characters in the DCU view John anything other than a very heroic character who is great to have in a battle. I have never seen John receive anything other than the utmost respect from the heroes who have fought alongside of him.

This was an incredibly bizarre and stupid move by McDuffie. The only way I can make sense of something this dumb is that McDuffie was taking the offensive on replacing Hal with John and getting a shot in on the comic book fans that would rather have Hal on the JLA instead of John. McDuffie leads with the race card in order to diffuse any criticism of replacing Hal with John by making a fan feel like they are racist for saying that Hal should be on the JLA instead of John.

Well, luckily, I’m Hispanic and mi gente are immune to the race card. I love all the Green Lanterns. The Green Lantern Corps is one of the wildest cosmic groups with so many species from all over the universe. I think Earth boasts the three best Green Lanterns in Hal, John and Guy. They all are great. However, the fact is Hal is the undisputed greatest Green Lantern. Sorry, Hal is the Michael Jordan of the Green Lantern Corps. And you can either like it or love it. The JLA should be reserved for the A-list. Hal is on the A-list and the rest are not. Plus, Hal is a founding member of the JLA which puts him even higher up the hierarchy.

Having said all that, I’ll enjoy John on this title because he is a good character and he doesn’t need the unnecessary defending that McDuffie gives John’s character. John Stewart can stand on his own merits.

McDuffie gives us a rather shallow and generic story. It very much feels like an old school standard issue comic book story. It reads like a cartoon. McDuffie gives us very traditional and one dimensional good guys and bad guys. Lex Luthor and his cronies come off as generic and one-dimensional raving maniacal villains. These characters are certainly the stereotypical “Mwa-ha-ha” evil villains that lack depth, complexity and texture. I prefer shades of grey in my villains like we get with characters like Magneto.

The Injustice League’s plot to take over America is a bit too much like a plan Dr. Evil would boast about. What is next? A plan to attack the JLA using ill-tempered mutated sea bass? This plan of the Injustice League is just a bit too generic, campy and goofy for my taste.

There is also some inconsistency with McDuffie’s villains. McDuffie has Cheetah make a big deal about not wanting to extend an invitation to Dr. Light because he is a rapist and a murderer. Huh? What? Cheetah complaining about a murderer? I mean, look at the two guys that she is having this discussion with! Lex Luthor and the Joker! Those guys have offed a few people in their lifetime.

Plus, Cheetah is a killer herself. Look how she ripped through Firestorm with murderous intent. That comment by Cheetah made no sense and was rather stupid. Maybe McDuffie should have just left it with Cheetah not wanting a rapist on the team.

I have to admit that I’m a bit bummed that Firestorm is not dead. That would have been one balls to the wall fantastic way to debut this new Injustice League. You have this team of villains brutally kill Firestorm in their very first appearance and you immediately launch this team of villains into a whole new level of seriousness. It would quickly establish this Injustice League as a severe threat and separate them from all the other goofy versions of this team that we have seen ever since the Super Friends cartoon.

Plus, Firestorm is a perfect choice for the character to be killed off in order to give this story arc some real impact. Firestorm is a somewhat lame C-list character that has gotten crappy sales numbers on his solo title. However, Firestorm still has just enough of a name that killing him off would send shockwaves through the DCU and would have more impact than killing off some no-name character who has never had their own solo title.

Also, since Firestorm is not a big name character with a legion of fans, there would be little protesting his death or pressure to bring him back to life like there would be if he was a big name character like Hal Jordan.

Overall: Justice League of America Wedding Special #1 was a fun read. No, McDuffie’s take on the JLA is not as in-depth and complex as Meltzer’s JLA. And McDuffie’s story doesn’t stimulate the mind nearly as much as Meltzer’s run. Melzter’s JLA was a nice thick juicy steak that really satisfied my brain. McDuffie’s JLA is more like popcorn. Delicious and enjoyable, but not filling.

But, just like popcorn is a fantastic snack for your body, your mind needs popcorn, too. And McDuffie’s JLA is certainly enjoyable popcorn for the brain. McDuffie delivers a story that moves at a quick pace and is easy to read. You zip through the issue and put it down with a smile on your face. There is something to be said for that experience.

If you loved Meltzer’s slower paced dialogue heavy stories based on strong character development, then you might be disappointed with what McDuffie gives you with his version of the JLA. However, if you found Meltzer’s run slow and boring, then you will absolutely love the fun and fast paced story that McDuffie brings to this title.