The first installment of the newly relaunched Justice League showcases Scott Snyder’s gift for crafting tales that are broad in scope but personal at the same time.
It’s actually somewhat surprising that Scott Snyder has never had a run on a Justice League title before. DC’s ace writer has been otherwise engaged cooking up some of the best Batman stories of this century, but he’s finally giving us his take on the the company’s premiere superteam alongside artists Jim Cheung and Mark Morales in Justice League #1. The result is a story that is wildly cosmic yet intensely focused, with an extra large dose of nostalgia thrown in for good measure.
Said nostalgia comes in the form of seeing both the Hall of Justice and the Hall of Doom in one comic, both with plausible, in-story reasons for existing. There are parallels between them, which is something of a Snyder staple, but mostly they are just going to delight any fans old enough to remember the Super Friends cartoons.
Part 1 of “The Totality” gives the League a fairly action-packed introduction, with the eight core members of the team fighting alongside other heroes against a global threat that quickly turns into something even bigger. Unlike previous Justice League relaunches, there’s no time spent on the actual building of the group, as that’s been done in previous titles.
Without that as part of the story, Snyder and the artists are free to spend a lot of time with a hero who has been a quintessential Leaguer for most of DC Comics history, though not too much over the past decade. J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, is not just the team’s chairman but the point of view character for this first issue, which works due to the nature of the danger that is very rapidly approaching the Earth.
The focus on J’onn extends even to the point where it’s him, not Superman or Batman, who delivers the book’s most stirring dialogue, and perhaps the mission statement for the new series as well. It’s an interesting choice to make Martian Manhunter not just the tactical leader of the team — though as in previous incarnations, his telepathy makes him uniquely qualified for that role — but its heart as well. Undoubtedly, the Trinity will all get their moments to shine, sooner rather than later, but this first issue belongs to the Martian, even if he ends it in a moment of self-doubt, something we’ve seen from him before.
Cheung, who probably isn’t thought of at the superstar level he deserves to be, and Morales make for an effective art team, and they hit a couple of highs in an early two-page spread that shows off the core heroes in individual panels, as well as the Legion of Doom reveal, which is no spoiler since DC told us it was coming. It’s the villains’ story of coming together that really needs to be told, since some of them (read: The Joker) are not known for being team players. Since Lex Luthor, especially, was on the side of the angels not that long ago, there’s some explaining the forthcoming issues are going to have to get to pretty quickly.
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Above all, though, Justice League #1 is a debut issue that begs to be re-read just so you can enjoy things like the ribbing that Bruce Wayne takes for his Batman voice, the cool visual flourishes that bring J’onn’s telepathy to life and the very badass (albeit brief) introduction of a certain Green Lantern who also hasn’t been with the main team for a bit. It promises high stakes, high concept craziness ahead, but it’s nicely grounded, for lack of a better word, at the same time. For Snyder fans, it certainly feels like it was worth the wait.