Broken Frontier

After a two week shipping delay, Justice League of America #15 finally hit shelves this week. Wrapping up the four-part arc involving Lex Luthor’s Injustice League (which gets the award for "Most Original Villain-Team Name" on Bizarro World), JLA finally catches up to the events just before Black Canary’s wedding.

This final issue in the "Unlimited" arc can be summed up as such: Villains have upper-hand, the League has an ace up their sleeve, Batman frees everyone, then the big fight. All of this in just the first four or five pages!

In all honesty, the only problem I had with the delay on this issue was the fact that it stretched this whole arc for another two weeks. I know that the assembled forces of evil in the DC Universe sounds like a cool idea, but Dwayne McDuffie falls short of the mark that Brad Meltzer made during his run on the book. Meltzer has a way of writing that just sucks you into the story and makes you question and wonder about everyone’s personal motives, sort of like a good "whodunnit" novel. This past arc seemed more like an action movie, with less emphasis on the characters and more on sensational fights, which may work for some folks, but not so much for me.

A smaller, more minor problem that I had with this arc was the issue of Green Lantern. Since issue one, Hal Jordan has been the League’s Lantern. Now McDuffie takes over and we’re stuck with John Stewart, the Guardians’ third choice to sling the ring? Thanks, but no thanks. Hal Jordan had been out of commission for about ten years, and when we get him back in the League, he gets pushed out of the limelight? Ridiculous.

In contrast, Ed Benes’ art is as good as ever in this issue. This man should never stray from the League ever again. His dynamic style stuns. Though the inks seemed less interesting than usual, Benes delivers panel after panel, page after page.

To wrap up, this arc was entertaining, but not enthralling. On the positive side, some issues are left vague, and are probably being saved for the Final Crisis. Now we are finally caught up with the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding, which took a ludicrously long time. So what’s next for the most powerful super-team on the planet? Why Christmas, of course!