I never had the chance to blog about the 52 Justice League's big intro, but now that the newly announced Justice League War animated feature will be based on the first 6 issues, now's a good a time as any. Unlike past animated movies like Under the Red Hood or Justice League Doom, this time I had the chance to read the original story first to notice any differences in the animated version. Right of the bat, the first change I heard about was them replacing Aquaman with Shazam in the upcoming animated issue. It also seems like they want to put some kind of buddy-buddy relationship between him and Cyborg. We'll see how that works out.
Even though it's 6 issues long, you'll soon see that this story wasn't particularly deep. It was mostly the heroes discovering the existence of each other and stopping a random invasion attempt from Darkseid. So that also leaves for a lot of room for extra padding and subplots to make this story long enough to be a feature film. Anyways, let's check out The New 52 Justice League issue 1.
Justice League part 1 opens with Batman chasing some of sort thing, while the Gotham City PD are chasing after him. This takes place 5 years before the present time, and at this time the world didn't know or trust superheroes, so Batman is being hunted by the police. Batman jumps rooftop to rooftop, tossing smoke bombs to cover his tracks from the police helicopters. He tosses a grappling hook right though the escaping person's leg as he jumps across another rooftop. Batman and the person tumble and roll, with Bats pinning him down and asking him what he was doing by the docks.
The man is some sort of monster and he unleashes some sort of explosive blasts that knocks Batman back. The monster starts to punch Batman until suddenly a neon green light fills the area. A fire truck made out of glowing green energy runs by and slams into the monster, almost knocking Batman off the ledge. As Batman climbs back onto the rooftop, he sees the Green Lantern, who is surprised to see that Batman is real. Bats tells him that he's 'too damn bright' and he should turn it down before they're seen.
Just then the police choppers spot them and start to open fire. Lantern makes a force field to protect them. Batman says the world is afraid of them. Lantern says he says that like it's a good thing, and Batman replies with 'it's necessary'. The monster suddenly sprouts wings and smacks Lantern with them. He then shoots out a mouth blast that blows up the helicopters. Before Batman can do anything, Lantern sends green bats to help save the fallen helicopters.
The monster suddenly grows spider-like legs and escapes to the city below. Batman chases after him and tell Green Lantern to 'take his flashlight and go home' since Gotham City belongs to him. Lantern tells him that the whole space sector belongs to him and there are thousands of Green Lanterns out there patrolling across the universe. Batman doesn't care much about his story and tells him that the monster was spotted trying to plant a bomb downtown, and when cops tried to attack it, it would spit fire from its mouth.
Green Lantern says he has the fires covered as green energy fire trucks are putting them out all over town. He then asks Batman what his powers are, if he can fly or have super strength. He is surprised to find out he's 'just a guy in a bat costume'. Batman suddenly reveals he has Green Lantern's ring in his hand and asks him what it does. As Lantern is surprised as how he got it off, Batman determines it must work off his concentration. Lantern gets his ring back and the heroes throw threats at each other until Batman spots the spider-monster fusing something to a wall.
Lantern flies into it, saying that if it's some kind of bombed, the monster just armed it. The monster says 'For Darkseid' and then explodes in a vicious wave of fire. Batman and Green Lantern are safe in a steel safe made of green energy. Batman says he blew itself up on purpose and tried to take them with it. Lantern says whatever the monster came to do, it did it, and he uses his ring to try to identify the bomb. He's surprised the ring can't identify it, and after Batman examines it, he determines it's some kind of alien computer. Lantern says it might be related to 'that guy in Metropolis' since he heard he's an alien. Batman's heard of him and says he's dangerous due to his power levels. Lantern says he won't be problem for him and says he can fill him in on their way to Metropolis.
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| It is said his power level reaches that of over 9000.... |
Seconds later. a red and blue blur socks Green Lantern clear across the battlefield. Superman says he can't be handled easily and stands before Batman. He asks him what can he do.
While many complained about the differences from this version of the Justice League with the one before Flashpoint, I saw it a fresh new starting point for me to get to know these characters. Since I was mostly just a Batman fan, and his story wasn't so much as changed, more like streamlined, this was the chance for me to get into the 'whole new series' and see the characters in their new outfits.
A fun little detail I noticed is that back when people were announcing and giving sneak peaks at the epic brand new N52 costumes, they were gonna give Wonder Woman black pants. The original previews for this cover showed her in the black pants. I guess in the end they decided to change her back to her more traditional star-spangled bikini bottom at the very VERY last minute.
Yeah, people complain about the Martian Manhunter not being a core member anymore, and apparently being replaced by Cyborg, who was one of the Teen Titans. For some reason DC has been pushing Cyborg a lot, making him a big part of the Flashpoint storyline, and even adding him in the animated feature Justice League Doom when he wasn't in the original story the movie was based on (JLA Tower of Babel). For whatever reason, Cyborg was upgraded from being one of the Teen Titans to being one of the founding members of the Justice League.
My personal complaint with the New 52 is how they had to get rid of Batman's costumes. He wore a variety of bat-suits throughout the years and he keeps some of them on display in the Batcave. I know they didn't want to confuse the readers with a different Batsuit in this '5 years earlier' storyline than what he would wear in Batman # 1 and Detective # 1 and so forth.... but still... this (as well as flashbacks throughout the New 52 Batman series) totally retcon it so Batman's New 52 outfit is the ONLY outfit he ever wore. I'm sorry... but I'm always gonna treasure the classic blue outfit with the yellow oval as part of his history from back in the day.
As for the story itself, there's not much to say since at this point it's mostly a Batman/Green Lantern team-up. I love theses scenes, especially when Batman snatched his ring and when Lantern discovered Batman is just a guy in a costume, without any actual super powers. I also like how Batman isn't particularly impressed by the guy that can create basically anything out of thin air. Green Lantern goes into detail about the Green Lantern Corps watching over every bit of the galaxy, and he's like 'uh-huh'. And I loved the 'take your green flashlight and go home' line.
As for Hal Jordan, people complain he was too cocky here, but hey, he's young, he's new, and for lack of a better term, he's still pretty green. I'm not up on Green Lantern's comics, so I assume after discovering these awesome powers that just boggle the mind with his ring (he's somehow controlling green fire trucks to put out fires all over town while hanging with Batman) he hasn't really encountered anything that was an actual threat to him... until he runs right smack into the wall known as Superman.
For more Justice League stuff here's my review on Justice League The Flashpoint Paradox
My review of Justice League- Doom
Epic Randomness of the Dark Knight (my first review co-starring the N52 Superman and Flash)
Epic Randomness of the Dark Knight part 2 (more N52 Superman and Flash cameos)
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