Justice League of America #4 Review

The Revolution has had nothing but praise for the Justice League of America. Meltzer and Benes are a fantastic team and they are delivering one incredible read each and every month. I am more than confident that Justice League of America #4 is going to be another excellent read. Let’s hit the review.

Creative Team
Writer: Brad Meltzer
Penciller: Ed Benes
Inker: Sandra Hope

Art Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: We begin with Superman slipping his fingers under the Starro on Trident’s neck and using his super strength to try and pry it off Trident’s neck. The Starro then cracks which shouldn’t happen if it was organic. Batman grabs the cracked piece and examines it.

We cut to Red Tornado flying off to find his android body. Kathy calls Red Tornado and pleads with him not to go. That now that he is human he can be killed. Red Tornado asks Kathy if she is saying that he wasn’t human before. Kathy says that isn’t what she meant. Red Tornado then tells her than he is landing now and hangs up on her.

We shift to Vixen flying with a bunch of bids about sixty miles outside of Hub City on her way to track down the Totem.

We then zip over to Arsenal, Black Canary and Green Lantern standing over all the defeated Tornado androids. Hal uses his ring to scan the next room. Hal says he will take the guys with the Apokoliptian technology. That Arsenal can take Plastique and Executioner and Black Canary will take Ivo. Hal thinks to himself that he enjoys being around Roy because he reminds him of himself when he was younger.

Hal then blasts through the wall. Arsenal fires two arrows through Plastique’s shoulders and two arrows through Executioner’s shoulders pinning the two villains to the wall. Green Lantern locks horns with the mysterious Apokoliptian villain. Black Canary pins Ivo and threatens to punch her boot’s stiletto heel through Ivo’s palm if he doesn’t tell her where Red Tornado’s body is located.

The Executioner rips himself free from the wall. Hal calls out to Arsenal to be careful. Arsenal then responds that he is now Red Arrow and that Executioner has a Starro on the back of his neck. Hal then tells Red Arrow to hit the Starro with one of his arrows. Red Arrows’ arrow rips the Starro off the Executioner’s neck. Hal continues to battle the Apokoliptian villain who tells Hal that he is Mr. Miracle’s brother. Red Arrow then shoots the Starro off the back of neck of the evil Mr. Miracle.

We cut back to the Batcave. Batman has discovered that the Starro is organic on the outside, but the inside is artificial. That the technology indicates that it is the work of Ivo. But, Batman says that it appears that someone is helping Ivo with the technology. That each Starro has been rewired. That each Starro probe has a telepathic link to ever other probe. In order to reuse the Starros for another purpose means that Ivo is getting help from someone new.

We shift back to Ivo telling Black Canary that he just wants to die. That there are thirteen immortals that walk this Earth. Truly immortal and not the work of a totem or magic. That there are always thirteen. That Ivo is giving his spot up to someone else so that Ivo can finally die.

We see Red Arrow and Green Lantern finding Red Tornado’s body. They have stunned looks on their faces.

We hop over to Markovia. We see a luxury yacht in flames. The owner of the yacht is Brion Markov, better known as Geo-Force. Geo-Force crawls ashore having escaped the explosion. Geo-Force radios his assistant and tells him to get his old communicator. Geo-Force says he needs to speak to Jefferson Pierce immediately.

We zip back to the Batcave. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Lightning and Hawkgirl decide to trace the signal to the Starro and then kick some ass.

We shift back to Red Arrow and Green Lantern unhooking the Red Tornado’s body from some machines. We hear Ivo telling Black Canary that it is no longer Red Tornado. That they were building a brand new Amazo. We see Amazo getting up from the table and say that it needs to feast. The new Amazo then takes down Green Lantern, Red Arrow and Black Canary by using the combined powers of the Flash, Superman and Batman.

Red Tornado then appears on the scene. Red Tornado tells Ivo that he knows Ivo stole his body. Suddenly, a big fist comes out of nowhere and punches Red Tornado in the face and knocks him out. The figure says that Ivo and he took Red Tornado’s body and merged it with Amazo in order to create a future body for the mysterious figure. The figure says that this new body was to be his protection and ultimate armor to ensure his life everlasting. The figure steps out from the shadows and it is Solomon Grundy! Grundy says that he is sick and tired of dying. End of issue.

Comments
The Good: Nice! Justice League of America #4 was an incredible read. Meltzer just continues to crank out nothing but gold early on with this title. Justice League of America #4 is brilliantly paced and nicely plotted. Meltzer knows exactly when to step on the pedal and accelerate the story and when to back off and let scenes slow down a bit. The flow if this issue is perfect. Meltzer does a great job shifting between the various scenes in a seamless fashion and linking them together.

The technique of making the shifts between the scene in the Batcave and the scene at Ivo’s lab shorter and more frequent the closer the reader gets to the end of the issue is wonderful for increasing the tension in the reader and increasing the pace of the story. Meltzer is a technically sound writer and he demonstrates that with a wonderfully plotted storyline that is nicely pieced together.

Meltzer serves up his usual strong dialogue. Each character has a well developed personality and the result is some great chemistry between the various Justice Leaguers.

I also like that Meltzer is more than willing to mix in plenty of action with his slower dialogue heavy scenes. This makes Justice League of America one of the more balanced titles on the market. I’m glad that Meltzer has finally ended the voting by the holy trinity. It was cool and a nice plot tool for the first three issues, but it would have gotten very old if he had continued it any further.

I also dig that we still don’t officially know the final roster for this new Justice League of America. We have a rough idea that the various characters we are currently seeing in this story arc will probably be the permanent roster. However, I like how the characters are coming together organically rather than through a formal invitation style meeting that you usually see on most team titles.

I’m still hoping that Meltzer rotates other members in and out along with the core team like the Justice League cartoon did. I think that is the perfect format for a team like the JLA that has so many characters associated with it. Having said that, if the core team turns out to be Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Hal Jordan, Red Arrow, Black Lightning, Hawkgirl and Vixen then I will be very pleased.

Meltzer has assembled an excellent cast of characters. I like all of them with the exception of Hawkgirl. I have always viewed Hawkgirl as just a boring derivative hero and nothing more. If I have to have a “Hawk” on the team, then I prefer the real deal: Hawkman. Also, I think that Hawkgirl is a better fit on the Justice Society of America than she is on the Justice League of America.

Having said that, the rest of the characters are great and Meltzer has demonstrated an excellent feel for their various personalities. I love Meltzer’s Black Canary. She is the perfect blend of violence and true heroism. Black Canary is a well rounded character. I like that Black Canary is ruthless in a fight, but still is very much a hottie who doesn’t feel the need to act manlier than the guys on the team. Black Canary is pure confidence. I dig it.

I also enjoy how Meltzer is handling Roy’s character. I love the name Red Arrow and think it is time for Roy to embrace his super hero heritage by paying homage to Ollie. Plus, the name Red Arrow is another step by DC to work Kingdom Come into the current continuity of the DC Universe.

I know that Red Arrow is certainly a derivative hero; however, his status as an old school side-kick grants him special exemption. Plus, Roy has gone out and become his own man as Arsenal and has forged his own identity completely independent from Ollie. Yeah, I’d prefer Red Arrow on the Titans and Green Arrow on the JLA, but I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. Red Arrow is a cool character and I really enjoy how Meltzer is writing him. Red Arrow was certainly kick-ass in the fight in this issue.

Clearly, Reddy is one of Meltzer’s favorites and it shows. Meltzer is delivering one of the most developed and interesting versions of Red Tornado. I thought the scene between Kathy and Red Tornado was very touching and well done. Red Tornado’s current situation is proof that sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

It was great to see Geo-Force make an appearance in this issue. I certainly wasn’t expecting that. I always liked the old Batman and the Outsiders comic book and have always been a big fan of Geo-Force. I’m psyched to see him making an appearance in this title. Of course, I’m curious to learn who attacked Geo-Force and why. This has the makings of a very interesting plotline.

The fight scene at Ivo’s lab was well done. Red Arrow got to strut his stuff. Black Canary showed why she is such a dangerous adversary. And we learned that this mysterious Apokoliptian villain is Mr. Miracle’s brother. Very interesting. I like this evil Mr. Miracle and hope that we get to see more of him in the upcoming issues.

I also liked how Meltzer swerved the readers with the Starros. With the end of Justice League of America #3, most readers were thinking that Starro was going to be one of the main villains. It made sense, since Starro was the villain that the original JLA fought in their debut issue. However, Starro was just a red herring as we learn that Ivo and Grundy re-programmed the Starro’s to do their bidding. This was a great twist by Meltzer that keeps the readers constantly on their toes.

Of course, the best part of this issue was the two big bombs that Meltzer drops on the reader at the end of this issue. First, we see that Red Tornado’s body has been merged with Amazo’s technology in order to create an all new and even more powerful Amazo. Very cool. I definitely like this new Amazo. Second, we learn that Solomon Grundy is the mysterious person directing everyone including Ivo. That the new Amazo is to be Grundy’s new body as he takes Ivo’s place as one of the thirteen immortals. What a wickedly cool twist.

I certainly was not expecting Solomon Grundy of all people to be the mysterious mastermind behind this entire plan. What a stroke of genius by Meltzer. And it all makes perfect sense. Grundy is certainly one character from the DCU that would definitely want to be immortal. Meltzer’s Grundy is a much slicker and more polished Grundy than the usual mindless zombie that we see running around the DCU. I really like this version of Grundy. He is much more sinister.

This was an incredible ending that definitely hooked me. Combine the powerful ending along with the fact that Meltzer is weaving several intriguing plotlines on this title and it becomes pretty obvious why I can’t wait for the next issue.

Ed Benes delivers his usual impressive artwork. Benes cranks out a wonderful looking book that really compliments Meltzer’s story. I cannot compliment Benes enough for his job on this title. Plus, Benes draws one of the best versions of Black Canary!

The Bad: No complaints at all.

Overall: Justice League of America #4 was an awesome read. Meltzer and Benes are turning out one of the most entertaining comics on the market. This is exactly what DC needed. They needed for their flagship title to return to prominence. Mission accomplished. Titles like the Justice League of America and Justice Society of America are exactly what DC desperately needs in order to make some gains on Marvel’s dominance of the Top 15 of the monthly sales charts. I definitely recommend the Justice League of America. It is well worth your money.